use of restraints

[kats]

My mom's brother just had bypass surgery on Monday and has apparently been dealing with ICU psychosis. He is normally somewhat claustrophobic and with everything else going on in ICU, he is having difficulties. The nursing staff had to resort to applying restraints as he was trying to take out his iv and other various tubes. A friend of my uncle's wife is now trying to tell my mom that this is illegal. I don't see how that is possible when they are just trying to prevent him from hurting himself. She asked if I had ever heard of anything like that and I told her that I would look into it. Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated. Thanks.

Kimberly

[germain]

Lets here it for sitters!

All of you nurses would have an easier time of it if you had trained cnas act as sitters for your more rowdy patients. If they understaff you, they can at least give you aides to help out. Thats what I do all the time. Most of the time I'm in the ICU with an alcohol withdrawl patient, and the families always have enough to deal with. I think its wrong to expect the families to be at the bedside 24/7, theyre gonna need that stregnth to take care of that person when they go home, and often have to deal with many other issues, especially where alcohol adn drugs are involved. My experience has been that family aren't well enough trained, are too emotionally involved, and too distratacted to be effective watching a loved one. Their role is important, which is why they need to conserve their energy to do it.