Student volunteers offer diversional therapy’
If you’re serious about avoiding physical restraints, you have to find some alternatives. Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, FL, has found success with high school volunteers who provide "diversional therapy."
The program, which began a year and a half ago, is based on the idea that many patients who otherwise would be restrained can be calmed and controlled with simple diversions such as card games. The nursing staff does not have the time to sit and entertain patients, but a little time from a volunteer can make a tremendous difference with a difficult patient, says Debbie Foshee, RN, director of quality and risk management.
Forty students were recruited from a local high school class studying future careers in health care. They were trained by several hospital departments to work with older adults and given a set of diversionary activities they could use when patients became restless, lonely, or upset.
"When we’ve tried relieving the patient’s discomfort and done all we can do to make them content, we call in a student volunteer," Foshee says. "The program is designed to divert the attention of patients who are prone to get up and wander.
"One of the biggest risks of falls comes with patients who shouldn’t get out of bed but are so bored or disoriented that they get up anyway," she says.
The student volunteers do not physically help the patients. Instead, they offer to sit and talk or play games with them. They work mostly with elderly patients, but also with older pediatric patients, especially those with mental disabilities. The students typically volunteer throughout the school year, and sometimes into the summer.
"It takes about a month to train the students in how to work with people, and also all the safety and other types of training that are required at the hospital," Foshee says. "It’s a lot of trouble to administer, but it works. If you don’t have restraints as an option in most cases, you have to have something else available."
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