Re: Clarification on restraints

[Holly Sox, RN, RAC-C]

Title: Message

Are people actually "physically making a person sit down" when an alarm goes off??  I guess I am more naive than I thought, but I would not have thought that would be a common problem.  When we have an alarm goes off, often, the alarm itself serves a reminder for the resident to sit down. Staff encouragement/reminders also help. If the person is determined to get up, then s/he is assisted to either transfer or to ambulate wherever it is s/he is wanting to go, then the alarm is replaced.   We use them just as alarms, to alert staff to attempts to transfer and/or walk. It just didn't occur to me that they would be used to keep someone in a chair.   HS Holly F. Sox, RN, RAC-C  Clinical Editor, Careplans.com www.careplans.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: mdsc To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 11:06 PM Subject: Re: Clarification on restraints We did recieve a tag regarding Wandergaurd bracelets one time because she had not been assessed for restraint reduction..it was considered a restraint because she was unable to remove it   I think if one physically makes a person sit down after an alarm sounds then they have just been restrained and there should be a place to code such because residents are physically restrained in such manner daily ----- Original Message ----- From: sheppard70057rn To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 6:47 AM Subject: Fw: Clarification on restraints   Dawn Sheppard, RN, CRNAC ----- Original Message -----   2 areas come up frequently as a question that I cannot find on the CMS site-     1. chair alarms and bed alarms- are they restraints? we heard at an MDS seminar in Texas that a resident who gets conditioned to the sound of the alarm and sat back down when the alarm sounded-we would have to code as a restraint-   2. wander guard bracelets-are they restraints? although the resident is free to move within the facility- it does prevent them from leaving-so how would we code those?         Here are two questions that have been posed to me.  The first one I would not believe it is a restraint but the second one gets you wondering.  Here is the thing:  IN the definition in the RAI manual about restraints it states "restricts freedom of movement".   What is freedom of movement?  Because technically a wanderguard would restrict freedom of movement from inside to the outside.  But if you are saying freedom of movement of their body then no it does not restrict that.  BUT if that is what it means thenit brings you to siderails.  Siderails just restrict  movement from one surface to the next, they do not restrict the resident's freedom of movement of their body.    Any comments are greatly apppreciated.   Dawn .