Fewer care facilities use restraints for elderly residents

There was an iniative begun some years ago to reduce the use of physical restraints, after the industry had shot itself in the foot by over-using restraints (tying patients into wheelchairs, four-point restraints in bed, etc.) for the facility's own convenience, keeping patients restricted.

It takes fewer staff if they don't have to suprevise as many patients. Then there began a backlash, so that now there is resistance to even use bedrails, due to the number of patients strangling to death in them, usually because no one checks on the patients frequently enough.

In the CMS quality indicator secton of the CMS Nursing Home Compare website, it includes information on a facility's restraint usage.

Here's a CMS report from last year on the subject:

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/SurveyCertificationGen...

restraints shouldn't be an option BUT STAFF are not always available to watch those who are unsteady gait and try to get up out of beds or wheelchairs. I am for safety and resident right but once a hip is fractured the decline cognitively and physically occurs and the resident becomes palliative and passes. LTC homes need more staff and more activations staff as well.