Does the Nursing Home You Visit Sound Like Home?

What sounds do you hear in your home?
Soft music from the CD player or digital cable TV?

Bird songs from the yard?

A dog barking in the distance – or maybe right there in your front room?

Cars passing by?

Children’s exuberance at play next door?

A public address system announcing through amplifiers throughout the house that you have a phone call?

Bells and harsh-sounding alarms going off at any time with no apparent rhyme or reason?
Are those last two probabilities of sounds heard in your home jarring? Such would be a natural response. Of course we don’t want those kinds of disturbances in our home. They shouldn’t be part of the environment either for people who live in nursing homes, or in any community setting that provides aging services. For the last three or four years there has been a growing clamor to remove bed and chair alarms, used all too often under the guise of preventing falls and keeping residents “safe.”
Research – and common sense – reveals that alarms do not keep residents safe and that, far from preventing falls, alarms may increase the risk for falls. As with any restraint, and these alarms ARE restraints, whatever the State Regulators say, every single system in the body is adversely affected as is the emotional and mental well-being of a person fearful of moving lest that *$%@*# noise go off again.

Adding to the harm of such alarms, all too often the common response by poorly-trained staff when an alarm goes off is to say, “Mrs. Johnson, sit down,” rather than try to determine what Mrs. Johnson needs or wants, and then accommodate her needs or preferences.
Progressive nursing homes are eliminating these alarms and realizing that individuals are doing much better and that the number of falls is decreasing. An article in The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA just this morning details such a move.

If you want to read this short article and the reasons why alarm restraints are being eliminated, this is the link.

http://www.patriotledger.com/topstories/x863235157/A-GOOD-AGE-Silencing-the-alarms-in-long-term-care#axzz2Ub9TJ5ey