Nursing Implications for Creating and Maintaing a Restraint-Free Unit Research Paper

Nursing Implications for Creating and Maintaing a Restraint-Free Unit Uviversity of Central Florida - Research Paper Example Alternatives to physical and chemical restraints are explored in this research review, as well as the nursing implications for creating and maintaining a unit that is restraint-free. A restraint free environment in the ICU is a situation where there is nothing that restricts the movement of the patient in the ICU. In restraint ICU, the patient is not allowed to make any movements by either controlling them physically with physical devices that limit their movements. Most hospitals today work towards having restraint free environments that would not restrict the movement of patients. To achieve this, nurses have a very important role in the creation and maintenance of the restraint free environments. The philosophy of nurses suggests that nursing includes taking care of someone by showing them love and concern. â€Å"This love and concern must also include the use of professional care for the patient† (Benbenbishty, 2010). When taking care of someone, the nurse has to ensure th at both his and her emotional, physical, and spiritual needs are met. It is also important for a nurse to ensure that while taking care of the patient, they must treat them with respect and dignity and to ensure that their needs and wishes are met. Nurses also have to realize that everyone ages, that aging is a very natural process, and that the old are human beings. This means that every nurse has the responsibility of taking care of the old with respect and not as people who are undergoing both mental and physical deterioration. Nurses also have to ensure that while taking care of a patient, their ultimate aim should be to rehabilitate, and maintain every patient in such a way that they enjoy their daily living in relation to their level of quality of life. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the nurses to ensure that a restraint free environment is created in the ICU. This is because as one patient is restrained, any or all of the above aims may be violated, hence leading to the violation of the nurse’s act. Therefore, nurses have a major role to play in the creation and maintaining of a restraint free ICU. They have to do this so as to fulfill their professional requirements and at the same time to act like human beings and to treat other people not as animals but as fellow humans. Since restraint causes a lot of pain and restrictions to the patient, it should be the main aim of every nurse to do away with it. In the event that the nurses create an environment that is free of any reins taint, then a lot will be achieved. First, the nurses would have fulfilled their career objective of providing an environment that is comfortable and that the wish of the patient can be put into consideration. To achieve this, however, there has to be a lot of increased responsibility on the nurses’ side. First, they have to increase the amount of time that they have to use in taking care of the patient. This also means that since no restriction is availabl e, then nurses have to ensure that they are always there for their patients so that they do not get hurt, especially those who may have some mental problems. Nurses also have to ensure that they closely monitor every patient to know who needs more care. It is also very important that for a free restrain to be effective, nurses have to reduce their level of carelessness and to know the kind of materials that should be kept away from the patient. Even though there is