turning pts during sleep?

[girlr6RN]

I strive to make my patients comfortable. With a quadriplegic pt who has good circulation and no hx pressure sores/skin breakdown, do you still need to change positions while sleeping?

[woody62, RN]

When I wqorked nights, we had a turn sheet that had to be signed every two hours, after a patient had been turned. I was in ICU for twenty-one days and I was turned every two hours. Did they wake me up sometimes? Yes. But I managed to fall back to sleep or I didn't. But I was also having pain, so I couldn't tell if it was pain or turning. I was a case manager for ten years. Any quad that was not turned every two hours, in house or every three at home, there would be problems, both for the patient and those taking care of him/her. One of the biggest things is skin breakdown. One of the biggest killers, in quads, are wound infections, from breakdowns.

Woody:twocents:

[onyx77]

Quads are on bowel programs and have to be stimulated digitally and the stool must be pulled out by a licensed nurse.

The question I was answering was referring to a post-op pt who was is a lot of pain and the nurse didn't know how to do a full skin assessment (coccyx area) without turning pt completely on their side and causing more pain. But, as she answered, this pt hadn't had a BM post-op yet.