Injuries from lack of footrests on wheelchairs in nursing homes

Описание: Today we are going to be discussing the use of footrests on wheelchairs in nursing homes. My name is Barry Doyle, I am a lawyer in Skokie, practicing nursing home abuse and neglect work throughout the state of Illinois. I'm also the author of Built to Fail, a free report available for download from my website, which spells out how the nursing home business model inevitably produces unnecessary injuries and deaths for nursing home residents.
Wheelchairs are a fact of life in many nursing homes and a fully equipped wheelchair will include footrests. Many times though, if you wander the halls of a nursing home, you will see residents who are in a wheelchair with no footrests on. Typically, those footrests will be off the wheelchair so a resident can do what's called self-propelling. In other words, pulling themselves forward by walking their feet forward as they move throughout the nursing home pulling the wheelchair with them.
Being able to self-propel for a nursing home resident is actually a fairly good thing. It promotes independence. It promotes activity. It helps assure some dignity. It allows them to do things on their own, which is a good thing for them. However, when they are being pushed by staff, which happens even if they are people who self-propel, the footrests absolutely have to be on the wheelchair. The reason for this is that when they're being pushed by staff, there is a potential that they will not be able to keep their feet up off the ground and when their feet touch the ground and they're being pushed forward one to two things can happen. First is that they can be thrown forward out of the wheelchair and end up breaking wrists or hitting their heads on the floor. The other thing that happened is that their feet can be pulled underneath the wheelchair resulting in a twisting injury to the lower extremity, which can result in a broken leg or tears in the cartilage or broken ankle.
Putting the footrests back on the wheelchair is one of these things that really should be a 101 level activity for staff. Frequently this isn't done simply because of the press of time and this crucial safety step is skipped and as a result, you end up with injuries to the resident who's being pushed forward in the wheelchair.
My name is Barry Doyle. I hope you found this interesting. If you have any questions regarding this or any other nursing home abuse and neglect issue, please feel free to reach out to us. Our number is (312) 263-1080, or we can be reached on the internet at www.accidentlawillinois.com. Thank you very much for watching.