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B.C. nurses to train in gang awareness - British Columbia - CBC News

The health authority in Prince George, B.C., plans to teach nurses how to deal with gang members who arrive at a hospital's emergency ward.

Northern Health Authority spokeswoman Eryn Collins said RCMP members will be invited to speak to staff about gang awareness and other safety issues.

"I couldn't definitively say whether the gang perspective on it has ever been raised before," said Collins. "It would be logical in terms of being aware of who you're dealing with."

via cbc.ca

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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Online tool can help seniors determine risk for dementia | Johns Hopkins University - The Gazette

A quick online assessment tool developed by Johns Hopkins researchers can help worried seniors find out if they are at risk of developing dementia and determine whether they should seek a comprehensive, face-to-face diagnosis from a physician, according to a new study.

The tool, which is being refined and validated, is not meant to replace a full evaluation from a doctor that includes a physical exam, blood work, imaging studies and more. Instead, this assessment provides a scientific way to help a person educate himself about a disease that doctors now believe is best managed if caught early.

“As the population ages and dementia becomes more prevalent, it’s important to get people diagnosed early,” said Jason Brandt, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the leader of the study appearing online in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. “Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia don’t just creep up on you. They’re incubating for decades in the brain. This tool is potentially very useful in determining who is at risk.”

Among the questions asked on the Dementia Risk Assessment are whether a person has a history of high blood pressure, depression, diabetes, high cholesterol or head injury, all of which are considered well-documented risk factors for dementia. The assessment also includes a simple memory test that could point to a subtle cognitive decline, Brandt says.

The study analyzed responses from 357 people over the age of 50 who took the assessment at www.alzcast.org. Those who scored lowest on the memory test were significantly older and were more likely to be men, have hypertension and report severe memory problems. And while only 9 percent of respondents reported they had severe memory problems, more than one-third said they had a first-degree relative with dementia or severe memory loss—a major risk factor for the condition.

The assessment takes just five to 10 minutes to complete online, and the questions have been borrowed from other scientifically valid assessments.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010

Mass. aims to cut drug overuse for dementia - The Boston Globe

State regulators and the Massachusetts nursing home industry are launching a campaign today to reduce the inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications for residents with dementia — a practice that endangers lives and is more common here than in most other states.

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During the next year, a team of specialists will identify nursing homes with successful methods for avoiding overuse of antipsychotics and determine which homes need help cutting back. Nursing home staff will be taught how to deal with aggressive and difficult behaviors, often displayed by dementia patients, without resorting to antipsychotics to sedate them.
In 2009, 22 percent of Massachusetts nursing home residents who received antipsychotic medications did not have a diagnosis for which the drugs were recommended — the 12th highest rate of inappropriate antipsychotic use in the nation, the Globe re ported earlier this year.
Twice in the past five years, federal regulators have issued nationwide alerts about troubling and sometimes fatal side effects when antipsychotics are taken by people with dementia, often Alzheimer’s patients.
Specialists say that understaffing sometimes prompts overuse of these medications to help control dementia patients’ behavior, but that inappropriate use can also be traced to lack of training in alternative approaches.
“There is a knowledge gap between the front-line workers — the nurses — and the black-box warnings on these medications,’’ said Laurie Herndon, a geriatric nurse practitioner who is leading the initiative for Massachusetts Senior Care, the trade group representing the state’s 430 nursing homes. A black-box warning is the most serious type of caution used in prescription drug labeling.
“We wanted to avoid talking at them, and instead provide educational material they can use,’’ Herndon said.
Campaign details will be unveiled at the association’s annual meeting today in Worcester, which is expected to draw about 900 people.
Alice Bonner, the state’s top nursing home regulator, said she appointed a task force to study the overuse of antipsychotics in nursing homes and develop alternative approaches after the Globe highlighted the problem in Massachusetts earlier this year. The task force includes nursing home physicians, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists, along with elder advocates, researchers, and state surveyors who monitor the quality of the facilities.
Bonner, director of the Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality in the Department of Public Health, said the state, given its budget problems, does not have new resources to devote to the campaign, but is working with legislators and the Patrick administration to get new funding in the next state budget. The trade association intends to apply for grants from nonprofit groups to fund the initiative.
“No one is going to plunk a whole lot of money in our laps,’’ Herndon said, “but that shouldn’t stop us.’’

Bonner said that the task force has already identified low-cost approaches used by some nursing homes. One approach involves more careful screening of patients when they are admitted, which includes gathering more detailed information from families about the patient’s personality before the onset of illness. This, Bonner said, helps staffers tailor care and activities to each patient.
“They get a good sense of who a person was before they began to suffer with dementia, what kinds of things they like to do, and what kinds of things their family can tell us makes them calm or gets them engaged,’’ Bonner said.
“When you see a nursing home with a low rate of antipsychotics, very often you will see these programs,’’ she said.
Bonner also said that nursing homes that give workers consistent schedules that allow them to work with the same patients have also been successful.
“That helps reduce difficult behaviors with patients with dementia because staff knows the patients so well, they pick up on early signs of trouble and prevent a catastrophic event, so they can intervene early,’’ she said. Consistent schedules have the side benefit of helping nursing homes retain their workers longer, Bonner said. “Once this is in place, it turns out it is less expensive because staff turnover is expensive,’’ she said.
The education campaign will draw on the work of Dr. Susan Wehry, a geriatric psychiatrist and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Wehry recently concluded an intensive, nine-month pilot project in four Vermont nursing homes that taught all staffers, from housekeepers to medical directors, alternative approaches, such as using music and massage, to manage difficult patient behaviors.
The program, she said, helped identify which alternatives work, which don’t, and how challenging the mission can be.
Wehry is still analyzing the results but said preliminary findings showed that in one of the homes where the administrator made all of the training sessions mandatory for staff, antipsychotic use was dramatically reduced. A third of the patients with dementia had been prescribed antipsychotics before the program, and not one was on them by the end, she said.
“They were much improved in terms of staff-resident interactions and level of alertness,’’ Wehry said. “And they looked happier.’’
Data from another home that did not make all of the training mandatory showed no change in the number of dementia patients given the medications. Wehry said a more troubling trend also emerged there — one of the physicians switched from giving antipsychotics to prescribing antianxiety medications.
“If all we do is shift the burden, then all we have done is create a different set of problems,’’ Wehry said. “Our goal is not to just reduce our reliance on antipsychotics, but to change [patient] behaviors.’’
Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com

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Friday, November 12, 2010

Violence in the ER-Emergency Department Nursing

A Maryland man made headlines last week when he shot and wounded a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. But unfortunately, his story is no longer a rarity. Hospital violence is increasing in frequency — and ER nurses bear the brunt of the hostility.

According to the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety and the Emergency Nurses Association, more than half of all emergency room nurses have been spit on, pushed, scratched and/or verbally assaulted on the job. Almost a quarter of ER nurses say they’ve been assaulted more than 20 times in the past three years.

ER nurses are particularly at risk because they often deal with intoxicated, confused or violent patients. Add to that increasing frustration over ER wait times and the healthcare system, and it’s easy to see why nurses are vulnerable.

While some hospitals are installing metal detectors in an effort in improve safety, many experts say that proper training is key to decreasing ER-based violence. All staff working in the ER should know:

Warning signs — If a patient is pacing with clenched fists, watch out. Also pay attention to patients’ speech patterns, history (have had they problems with authority in the past?) and diagnoses. Patients with psychiatric disorders and those under the influence of drugs or alcohol are more likely to lash out.

How to get help — Call for help as soon as you sense a threat.

De-escalation techniques — ER staff should be trained in special techniques designed to diffuse a potentially volatile situation.

What to do if violence occurs — Safety, of course, is number one. But after violent incident, report it! Hospital administration needs to know about each and every incident so that steps can be taken to create a culture of safety.

Have you ever been assaulted at work? Do you feel adequately trained to meet the threat of violence?

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Hurting a nurse is a felony-New York State Law Passed

Assaulting a nurse is now a Class D felony under New York state law.

The Violence Against Nurses Law passed this week puts nurses into a protected group that includes police officers, firefighters and emergency responders. A physical attack on a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse (or one of the other service workers in the protected category) is considered a felony and is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Workplace violence against nurses has been in the news a lot lately. A California psychiatric technician was allegedly killed at the hands of a patient. A doctor assaulted an ICU nurse while he was a patient in Intensive Care. According to the Emergency Nurses Association, between 8 percent and 13 percent of emergency department nurses are victims of physical violence each week.

While a number of states have considered or are currently considering increasing the penalty for assaulting a nurse, support for these measures have been limited. Similar bills failed in both North Carolina and Vermont; Virginia simply punted the proposal to the state crime commission. Ohio is still considering a change in the law.

The New York Nurses Association and Emergency Nurses Association both applaud passage of the legislation. However, they note that the new law is just part of the solution. Nurses also need training in communication and de-escalation techniques; they need proper equipment (including panic buttons and silent alarms) as well.

What do you think of the new law? Is your gut reaction, “About time!” or “What good will that do?” Discuss!

Tags: New York, News, Violence Against Nurses Act, Workplace Violence

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