Physical Restraint Use On Elderly Essay

regulations. “The practice of nursing is a right granted by a state to protect those who need

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported that more than one third of adults 65 and older fall each year. Half of the elderly people, who fall, do so repeatedly. Aside from the health problems related to falls, nearly $20 billion of direct medical costs are associated with fatal and non-fatal falls (Larson & Bergmann, 2008).

The following paper will introduce the house bill number 4266 titled Nurse and Health Care Worker Protection Act of 2015. This bill attempts to lessen nurse injuries by investing in safe patient handling and mobilization technologies and education programs. This paper will provide a background on the bill. Next, the bill will be summarized and analyzed using Malone’s (2005) framework. The paper will next discuss ethical considerations, mainly focusing on utilitarianism and nonmaleficence to highlight both the pros and cons of the policy present by the house. A section is included on nurse support for the bill by the American Nurses Association, and finally a personal reflection.

With over 1.5 million elderly and dependent adults now living in nursing homes throughout the country, abuse and neglect has become a widespread problem. Even though some nursing homes provide good care, many are subjecting helpless residents to needless suffering and death. Most residents in nursing homes are dependent on the staff for most or all their needs such as food, water, medicine, toileting, grooming- almost all their daily care. Unfortunately, many residents in nursing homes today are starved, dehydrated, over-medicated, and suffer painful pressure sores. They are often isolated, ignored and deprived of social contact and stimulation. Because of insufficient and poorly trained staff commonly found in

As the healthcare system in this country has changed, so have traditional nursing homes. Families have the right to expect that their loved ones will be taken care of by professionals in a caring environment. Unfortunately, may people are being abused and neglected in nursing homes. It is very clear that abuse is a serious problem among nursing home patients, and something needs to be done to put a stop to it.

Elimination of patient falls is not an easy task otherwise they would have been eliminated by now. Patient falls unfortunately continue to be a challenge and occur within the hospital and nursing home settings at alarming and sometimes deadly rates. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 1,800 older adults living in nursing homes die each year from fall-related injuries. Survivors frequently sustain injuries resulting in permanent disability and reduced quality of life. Annually, a typical nursing home with 100 beds reports 100 to 200 falls and many falls go unreported (CDC, 2015). Falls occur more often in nursing homes because patients are generally weaker, have more chronic illnesses, have difficulty ambulating, memory issues,

The purpose of this paper is to critique the research article, Mohler & Meyer’s “Attitude of nurses towards the use of restraints in geriatric care: A systemic review of qualitative and quantitative study 2014. The incident I am going to discuss in this paper is of Mr. P., an 85-year-old man, admitted to this facility about 4 months ago. His history includes coronary heart disease, cataract, dementia, hypertension, macular degeneration and Alzheimer’s. Mr P. scored 28 of 30 on the Folstein Mini-Mental State Test, he missed the date and recalled 2 of 3 objects in 5 minutes (Folstein, Folstein, and McHugh 1973). His medications include; Analgesics, antihypertensions, antipsychotics

Falls in an acute care setting lead the list of injury related deaths and deaths in the elderly. “A fall is defined as any event which patients are found on the floor (observed or unobserved) or an unplanned lowering of the patient to the floor by staff or visitors” (Kalisch, Tschannen, and Lee, 2012, p. 6). Medicare and Medicaid changes in 2008 list falls as one of the 10 hospital acquired conditions for which hospitals will no longer be reimbursed because falls are considered preventable conditions. Joint Commission accredited hospitals are required to assess for falls risk and implement falls prevention measures.

According to the Joint Commission Resources (2005), "falls are the"¦primary etiology of accidental deaths in persons over the age of 65." However, it is important to note that in the opinion of JCR, the injury rate happens to be highest amongst those aged 85 years and above. To highlight the seriousness of the issue, the commission further points out that the number of deaths associated with

Enforcing laws in nursing and care facilities will directly benefit both the elderly patients and the care physician. With laws enforced, and families and patients informed, a world of worry dissolves from the patient and the family. When patients and families don’t need to worry about the safety or livelihood in a nursing or care home, it benefits everyone. The census bureau states, “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people 65 years of age and older accounted for 12.5% of the US population in 2000” (Sellas M.D.). It would be a huge relief for everyone if laws were enforced. Also, the work environment for the care and nursing physicians would greatly benefit from the enforcement of elder abuse safety regulations. As stated previously, most acts of violence in the nursing and care fields occur when employees collect low wages and feel miserable because of their working environment. When the government enforces laws, it creates a better working environment and then a safer environment for patients. In many cases, nurses and other caregivers may not know exactly what forms elder abuse can take. They need to be informed, in a variety of ways. According to the Oxford Journal, “There is an annual world Elder Abuse Awareness Day and the

The General Accounting Office and the Health Human Services Office of Inspector General both have noted the lack of known data related to the use of these practices (Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization [JCAHO], 2004). Research has revealed that the use of restraints varies dramatically from facility to facility with a wide range of facility and staff knowledge on how to prevent and avoid such use. According to Castle and Mor (1998), there are a growing number of stakeholders that have developed guidelines for restraints use and the quality of these guidelines have yet to be determined and their widespread application

Medical expenses in United States are increasing at an enormous pace. One of the highest expenditure of its expenses is used toward the care of elderly US senior citizens. Elderly people are vulnerable to many diseases, but one of the incidents that the elderly people are prone to is fall. As a person grows older, chances of fall increases. Elderly person have weaker bones, and a damages caused by a fall can have a huge impact on an elderly person’s health. Falls are the leading cause of injury related visit to emergency department and primary etiology of accidental deaths among elderly people. Emergency department visits related to falls are more common in children less than five years of age and adults 65 years of age and older. Compared

In today’s health care industry, mechanical restraints are often used to maintain patients’ behavior and ensure their safety when treating the elderly and the severely ill (Gatsmans & Milisen, 2006). There are many variations of mechanical restraints, but all are defined as “any device, material or equipment attached to or near a person 's body and which cannot be controlled or easily removed by the person and which deliberately prevents or is deliberately intended to prevent a person 's free body movement to a position of choice and/or a person 's normal access to their body” (Gatsmans & Milisen, 2006, p.

A fall is a lethal event that results from an amalgamation of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors which predispose an elderly person to the incident (Naqvi et al 2009). The frequency of hospital admission due to falls for older people in Australia, Canada, UK and Northern Ireland range from 1.6 to 3.0 per 10 000 population (WHO 2012). The prevalence of senior citizen’s falls in acute care settings varies widely and the danger of falling rises with escalating age or frailty. Falls of hospitalized older adults are one of the major patient safety issues in terms of morbidity, mortality, and decreased socialization

Proponents of physical restraint believe that the use of it can assist healthcare providers in