Limitations of Restraint

resulting from all the recent publicity about cruelty and poor standards of care in mental and mentally subnormal hospitals, I have examined in detail some apparent weaknesses which exist in relation to defined limits of physical restraint. To increase the awareness amongst staff and the public about where and when restraint is necessary, and when uncontrolled use of physical restraint evolves into cruelty, is most difficult. I think it is possible to give some guidance on the subject of acceptable restraint, if we can define the level of abnormal behaviour of the patient which can be tolerated without being anti-therapeutic. During this examination, I have come across incidents of restraint which could be considered acceptable. On some of these occasions there were other answers which could eliminate the use of restraint but, at the time it was applied, there was no alternative. To illustrate this, I will try to describe them against a practical nurse / patient situation which would exist in an average ward fa