In a past position as a mental health care worker at a large psychiatric hospital, I had to serve on the restraint team for aggressive and violent patients (I used to use this as a pcik-up line
. It even worked on RayneeDeigh!
😀) Designated workers used to be paged from all units and would arrive in a large group to deal with the patient. The team was usually led by a nurse who had a sedative medication ready to inject. The patient was always verbally redirected first and usually the very presence of the team was enough to get the patient to comply. Non-compliance was frequently followed by members of the team physically placing the patient on a bed in a room away from the others patients. The patient was then restrained with various combinations of four point leather restraints, velcro straps, over the body mesh sheets, and occasional mouth or facial protectives. Usually, by that point the patient was already injected with a sedative so the patient relaxed quickly. I seem to remember seeing a real straight jacket before but do not remember using it.
Aggressive individuals with mental ******ation/ developmental disabilities are a whole other ball game. Staff can not even touch the clients unless it is written into their physician/ psychologist signed plans ahead of time, which are further reviewed by different committees, due to so many years of abuse in the industry. Staff are always trained in SCIP (Strategies of Crisis Intervention Prevention) or similar techniques. Much of the aggression is self-injurious behavior and staff is hurt by trying to stop the person from harming him or herself. When a physical restraint is used everything is monitored and the whole "incident" in written up and submitted to state officials who the decide if staff did anything inappropriate to the client.
I have been slapped, hit, kicked, grabbed, scraped, nearly bitten, pushed, pulled, and had clothes ripped (that will teach me to wear Armani suits to work
). By the way, never wear something like a tie or scraf arounf your neck when you are working with people who are prone to aggression. Also, long hair is not such a great idea.
If you have never experienced any of this, do not worry. Everyone in the field in always trained in basic safety/ intevention methods. I have seen many small people deal very well with very large aggressive patients. You should really always be on your defensive and always know where back up help is available if necessary. Many clinics have their own security to deal with such situations or just call the police and/or EMS so they can take care of the problem. Also, 99% of the time, there are warning signs to the patient aggression and it does not just come out of the blue so the real trick is to intevene early before the person become physically aggressive.
