Should this patient be restrained to prevent injury? Would you request the order for a body restraint? Why, or why not?

Critical thinking: safety | Nursing homework help

Whether to restrain a patient to prevent injury should be based on the individual situation and assessment of the patient. The decision should be made in conjunction with a healthcare professional’s experience, age-appropriate knowledge of the patient, as well as pertinent laws and regulations.

When deciding whether or not to use restraints, a thorough assessment must take place in order to determine if there is an immediate risk of harm to self or others due to agitation or other behaviors. If this risk exists, non-physical interventions should be attempted first such as de-escalation techniques and verbal measures. The safety and well-being of both the patient and health care team members must always remain paramount.

If after attempting these approaches it is determined that restraints are necessary for safety reasons, then they may be considered; however, reasonable efforts must still be taken by medical staff to continually reevaluate the appropriateness of their use every couple of hours or sooner if any significant changes have occurred in the status of either party (patient/healthcare staff). This will help ensure that restraint use is minimized and terminated when no longer needed while also protecting all parties from potential injury caused by restraint use.

In addition, medical practitioners need to take into account applicable laws pertaining to restraint usage prior making such decisions as mandated reporting requirements vary from state-to-state. Laws can also provide guidance regarding which types of physical restraints are acceptable for particular situations along with frequency guidelines governing how often a physician must review each case involving restraint orders being used within facilities under his/her supervision. Therefore yes I would request an order for body restriction based on an appropriate assessment but only once all non physical intervention have been explored first including verbal de escalation techniques in order reduce any potential risks associated with its use.