GeneChing
12-27-2011, 11:57 AM
I know a few paramedics and EMTs who dabble in Wing Chun because it's perfect for the kind of scenarios they might encounter.
Martial arts used to calm combative dementia patients (http://www.gazette.com/news/combative-130768-patients-days.html)
December 27, 2011 6:50 AM
BARBARA COTTER THE GAZETTE
Therapeutic Chi Sao:
What: Therapeutic Crisis Solutions will hold an introductory class on Therapeutic Chi Sao
When: 6 p.m. Jan. 17
Where: Colorado Springs Senior Center, 1514 North Han**** Ave.
Cost: $10
Info: 684-5210 or connect@thetcs-llc.com
http://images.onset.freedom.com/colgazette/gallery/lwu92p-lwu90d122711maincare.jpg
Courtesy of Jeff Lujan
Jeff Lujan, a social worker at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, teaches a class to professional Beth Ingram on open-handed, dignified care. It can be used when a patient begins to grab or hit from bed. Lujan is an owner/operator for Therapeutic Care Solutions.
Angela Waterbury is a nurse, not a soldier, but there are days when combat pay would seem to be in order.
“You name it — I’ve been grabbed, pinched, hit, kicked,” she said.
The source of her injuries is, on the surface, an unlikely group: hospice patients, primarily seniors, with dementia. But don’t be fooled. Even though they’re sick and, perhaps, weakened by age and illness, they still have enough physical oomph to injure people when they’re alarmed or discombobulated, and injure themselves in the process.
“That’s sometimes a surprise. Most people think about our patients as being on their last breath, on the brink of death,” said Martha Barton, president and CEO of Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, where Waterbury is nursing services manager. “But combative behavior is not unusual in patients that have had long-lasting dementias. It poses a risk to the patient as well as to those who are caring for the patient.”
Many nursing homes and other facilities with patients with dementia teach some methods for dealing with the crisis at hand, including the Crisis Prevention Institute’s gold-standard program, Nonviolent Crisis Intervention. But after observing patient-staff interaction when he went to work for Pikes Peak Hospice last year, social worker Jeff Lujan decided those techniques are too reactive and not comprehensive enough to ward off combative behavior or fully safeguard patients and caregivers against injury when preventive methods fail.
So Lujan brought an alternative approach to Pikes Peak Hospice last year, one he began developing when he worked at a Pikes Peak area youth facility in 2005. Called Therapeutic Chi Sao, its roots lie in Lujan’s background as a martial arts instructor, and it relies on a combination of body language, gentle defensive moves and comforting touches to keep patients calm or defuse a combative situation, if it gets to that point.
“This is an approach to patient care, not an intervention,” Lujan said recently to a group of health-care professionals attending a monthly meeting of the El Paso County Medical Society’s Extended Care Ethics Committee. “It becomes a holistic approach that’s constantly applied.”
Lujan said patients with dementia don’t process the world around them in the same way that others do, and may not pay attention to what people are saying because they may be more focused on body language. So they’re more inclined to be spooked by a sudden movement or an aggressive stance that can escalate into a situation where the health-care worker is injured. In turn, the patient is at risk of injury as the worker attempts to break away from a death grip.
“If a dementia patient is agitated — as soon as I tense my muscles, it changes the timbre of my voice, and she’s not going to cue off my words because she has dementia,” Lujan said. “She cues off my body language.”
With Chi Sao, “They feel calmness when you walk in, not tension,” said Todd Ikehara, an instructor and partner at Therapeutic Crisis Solutions, LLC, a business Lujan started with Pikes Peak Hospice’s blessing to teach the technique to others who work with dementia patients.
Officials at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care were so impressed with Chi Sao, also known as “sticky hands,” that they’ve made it part of regular training for staff and volunteers who work with patients, especially those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, Barton said.
“It’s been absolutely fabulous,” Barton said. “We know how to stand, how to block an arm that comes swinging our way, how to position ourselves in wrapping around that patient to decrease their anxiety or manage what might be hurtful. We literally approach patients differently. We talk differently, stand differently.
“It’s very practical, and it’s very well based,” Barton added. “These are studied movements.”
The ramifications could be huge, not only for Lujan’s business, but for the thousands of health-care workers who come in contact with dementia patients nationwide. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, assaults — primarily from patients — accounted for about 7 percent of workplace injuries to health care practitioners last year. BLS doesn’t narrow the source of the assault by age or condition, so it’s not clear how many assaults are perpetrated by elderly patients with dementia, but it’s a population known to cause injuries. And Barton said Chi Sao has reduced injuries among hospice staff.
Waterbury, nursing services manager at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, is passionate about the approach, so much so that she joined Lujan as a partner in the business, and they’re on a mission to teach it to others who work with dementia patients. BEO Personal Care in Colorado Springs has had the procedure taught to its staff, and Waterbury and Lujan gave presentations at the state hospice conference in Denver. They hope to see it used nationally.
“I use this every single day,” Waterbury said. “This has changed my nursing.”
Martial arts used to calm combative dementia patients (http://www.gazette.com/news/combative-130768-patients-days.html)
December 27, 2011 6:50 AM
BARBARA COTTER THE GAZETTE
Therapeutic Chi Sao:
What: Therapeutic Crisis Solutions will hold an introductory class on Therapeutic Chi Sao
When: 6 p.m. Jan. 17
Where: Colorado Springs Senior Center, 1514 North Han**** Ave.
Cost: $10
Info: 684-5210 or connect@thetcs-llc.com
http://images.onset.freedom.com/colgazette/gallery/lwu92p-lwu90d122711maincare.jpg
Courtesy of Jeff Lujan
Jeff Lujan, a social worker at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, teaches a class to professional Beth Ingram on open-handed, dignified care. It can be used when a patient begins to grab or hit from bed. Lujan is an owner/operator for Therapeutic Care Solutions.
Angela Waterbury is a nurse, not a soldier, but there are days when combat pay would seem to be in order.
“You name it — I’ve been grabbed, pinched, hit, kicked,” she said.
The source of her injuries is, on the surface, an unlikely group: hospice patients, primarily seniors, with dementia. But don’t be fooled. Even though they’re sick and, perhaps, weakened by age and illness, they still have enough physical oomph to injure people when they’re alarmed or discombobulated, and injure themselves in the process.
“That’s sometimes a surprise. Most people think about our patients as being on their last breath, on the brink of death,” said Martha Barton, president and CEO of Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, where Waterbury is nursing services manager. “But combative behavior is not unusual in patients that have had long-lasting dementias. It poses a risk to the patient as well as to those who are caring for the patient.”
Many nursing homes and other facilities with patients with dementia teach some methods for dealing with the crisis at hand, including the Crisis Prevention Institute’s gold-standard program, Nonviolent Crisis Intervention. But after observing patient-staff interaction when he went to work for Pikes Peak Hospice last year, social worker Jeff Lujan decided those techniques are too reactive and not comprehensive enough to ward off combative behavior or fully safeguard patients and caregivers against injury when preventive methods fail.
So Lujan brought an alternative approach to Pikes Peak Hospice last year, one he began developing when he worked at a Pikes Peak area youth facility in 2005. Called Therapeutic Chi Sao, its roots lie in Lujan’s background as a martial arts instructor, and it relies on a combination of body language, gentle defensive moves and comforting touches to keep patients calm or defuse a combative situation, if it gets to that point.
“This is an approach to patient care, not an intervention,” Lujan said recently to a group of health-care professionals attending a monthly meeting of the El Paso County Medical Society’s Extended Care Ethics Committee. “It becomes a holistic approach that’s constantly applied.”
Lujan said patients with dementia don’t process the world around them in the same way that others do, and may not pay attention to what people are saying because they may be more focused on body language. So they’re more inclined to be spooked by a sudden movement or an aggressive stance that can escalate into a situation where the health-care worker is injured. In turn, the patient is at risk of injury as the worker attempts to break away from a death grip.
“If a dementia patient is agitated — as soon as I tense my muscles, it changes the timbre of my voice, and she’s not going to cue off my words because she has dementia,” Lujan said. “She cues off my body language.”
With Chi Sao, “They feel calmness when you walk in, not tension,” said Todd Ikehara, an instructor and partner at Therapeutic Crisis Solutions, LLC, a business Lujan started with Pikes Peak Hospice’s blessing to teach the technique to others who work with dementia patients.
Officials at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care were so impressed with Chi Sao, also known as “sticky hands,” that they’ve made it part of regular training for staff and volunteers who work with patients, especially those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, Barton said.
“It’s been absolutely fabulous,” Barton said. “We know how to stand, how to block an arm that comes swinging our way, how to position ourselves in wrapping around that patient to decrease their anxiety or manage what might be hurtful. We literally approach patients differently. We talk differently, stand differently.
“It’s very practical, and it’s very well based,” Barton added. “These are studied movements.”
The ramifications could be huge, not only for Lujan’s business, but for the thousands of health-care workers who come in contact with dementia patients nationwide. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, assaults — primarily from patients — accounted for about 7 percent of workplace injuries to health care practitioners last year. BLS doesn’t narrow the source of the assault by age or condition, so it’s not clear how many assaults are perpetrated by elderly patients with dementia, but it’s a population known to cause injuries. And Barton said Chi Sao has reduced injuries among hospice staff.
Waterbury, nursing services manager at Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care, is passionate about the approach, so much so that she joined Lujan as a partner in the business, and they’re on a mission to teach it to others who work with dementia patients. BEO Personal Care in Colorado Springs has had the procedure taught to its staff, and Waterbury and Lujan gave presentations at the state hospice conference in Denver. They hope to see it used nationally.
“I use this every single day,” Waterbury said. “This has changed my nursing.”