patient pretending to fall?

People are nuts. í ½í¹„í ½í¹„ You did the right thing though. You have to report facts, which include the patient stating he fell and hit his head.

If the patient is AOx4, steady on their feet, etc. I would have allowed him privacy as well. I usually stand next to the door or behind the curtain though so I probably would have questioned the patient, "you fell? I was right here and didn't hear a thing. Wow, how did you manage not to spill that full commode?" and maybe prompted him to be truthful. If he maintained that he fell, then of course I'd have no choice but to follow protocol.

I deal with fake falls all the time. When they do it, we discontinue all narcs. Narcotics are fall risk drugs and we don't want them to fall again.

TBH I have handled it the way you did at times, and other times I have said something like, "that's too bad" and gone about my day. Usually somewhere in the middle, such as gently challenging the claim as described by previous poster.

You can't control what other people do/say, and you didn't do anything wrong here. Just document factually. Also, resist the urge to focus on self when describing, documenting, or reporting - leave that drama out of it so you don't end up looking like you actually need to defend your own actions. That's about all there is to it. Stay calm, be factual. Wait...there is one more thing: Always investigate a patient's claims. This incident was pretty easy to investigate, but the next one may not be. Don't blow people off based on things like their reason for admission or difficult behaviors. Be prudent and act in their best interest.

Everything's okay! No need to stress about it any more. :)

The patient is an expert at manipulation. He was seeking drugs for the "pain" from the so called fall.

You followed fall protocol and surely you documented the scene of the fall. You did nothing wrong.

It was a good lesson, now you know what addicts are capable of.

I want to ask a question here but don’t know how?

24 minutes ago, Marija1 said:

I want to ask a question here but don’t know how?

A question in regards to this post on a fake fall? Or a question in general that you want to create a thread for? To start a new thread with a question, click the green "Add new topic" button.

I would not have left a withdrawing pt alone. They are automatically and fall and seizure risk. I just tell them, sorry, no privacy when you are a fall risk. In the icu, I have very few that are not a fall risk. But a pt who is actively withdrawing and getting Ativan is a fall risk.

You did the right thing though. I had a person fake fall one time. I had all of the precautions in place. He was wanting Ativan and faking seizures. He actually got out over 4 side rails up. The part I hated most was I had to cancel his transfer order and then complete all the paperwork and CT.

I was like, really, dude???