Hydrotherapy

[abbaking]

About 10 years ago I worked in an adolescent residential treatment center called Brown Schools of Central Texas. The facility is no longer open (I sure hope not) and when I worked there I was a mental health technician. I vividly remember that if the kids did not calm down after being in seclusion for a few hours (back then Texas did not have many regulations for psych facilities) the poor kids would be forcefully medicated with Thorazine IM and put into bathtubs full of cold water covered with a weird canvas top. The kids would be completely covered by the canvas restraint except their head bobbing back and forth. Is this still done today?

[Morgan314]

In all my years of psych nursing, this "therapy" is new to me. What is the therapeutic benefit of this? What was it to accomplish? It sounds like abuse.

[SoxfanRN]

Back in the dark ages of mental health, cold water blankets were wrapped around agitated people. The rationale was that the person't body heat would warm the water up and then comfort them. It is not used today. I cannot think of one plausible rationale for cold water baths. Warm water, yes, but not cold water. I would think inducing hypothermia would be detrimental to the child's health and a huge safety risk.

[elkpark]

I have heard of warm water baths (before my time, but I've heard of it -- in the big tubs with the canvas covers, as you describe), but not cold. Yeesh!

[abbaking]

I want to also say that when I worked at this facility in the mid 1990's, most of the staff would use this type of "Treatment" as a means of punishment. Like I said before, back then Texas had very poor child safety laws in regards to restraints in adolescent RTC's. I very vividly remember cold bathtubs with the canvas top restraining device preventing the patients from leaving the tub. This facility over utilized Physical Holds, Seclusion, and this Hydrotherapy Treatment as measure of disaplineor retaliation. During the Hydrotherapy Procedure, the LVN and ward staff would forcefully remove the kids clothing, fill the tub with water, medicate the kids, and then monitor the kids T/P/R every 30 minutes.

[lcprnc]

The hydrotherapy that I know of is a form of CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine), just like aromatherapy, massage, etc. Anyway, this hydrotherapy is the same as whirlpool or warm bath to relax the patient. Personally, warm bath relaxes me....but the hydrotherapy that you're refrring to where a child is immersed in cold water sounds inhumane and I wouldn't call it "therapy."