Mobility Equipment (Nursing)

00:04 Now we've talked a lot about moving a client now sometimes we need extra help to help keep the patient and the nurse safe so let's look at some other pieces of equipment that definitely can help us do that.

00:17 So first let's look at some key equipment that's available for you to assist with your patient care so first let's look at this bariatric bed so this is really key you may sometimes have a patient that's really tall or you may have a patient that has a high BMI or a body mass index you can imagine for comfort this is really helpful for our clients. Next, let's take a look at the lift, okay I know this thing looks a little crazy but this is really underutilized by us as nurses so this is really helpful especially in like the ICU setting maybe a neurological setting, I use it all the time in a stroke setting for example now why we use this if a patient cannot bear weight, their own understand or help us this is really helpful for that and it really helps keep the nurse and the patient safe.

01:10 Now I just want to take a small look at this if you see those hooks up there, this is really meant to use a sling and meaning it just really is a piece of material that wraps around the patient we can attach it to those hooks and we can lift the patient to out of the bed into a chair so this is really helpful in what we call a total lift patient. Now next let's look at the trapeze so you see the design of the trapeze really what you want to take a look at is the triangle piece because this trapeze can just be attached to a little piece over the bed. This is really helpful especially for maybe your post operative back patients and they need help moving up in bed but to promote as much independence as possible they can simply grab the trapeze and then pull themselves up so this is really helpful device, Next here we have the slide board, this is really helpful to log roll a patient, put this underneath and help slide them over so this is really a great piece of equipment that we use. Let's look at a couple couple more on this slide now you see this one called mattress overlays so this is going to vary from facility but most the time we have actual beds that will do this but some facilities may have to use their bed that they've got and use an overlay and we're going to use this to help reduce pressure ulcers for example so you may see this and again it depends on facility and lastly, look at this hover mat so this thing is really great let's say you have a patient fall to the floor and instead of trying to pull on their arms and legs we can simply slide this under the patient inflate it and it's definitely going to help us in mobility of the patient and to move a patient.

02:58 Okay so let's take a look at this image this is called the client study this is actually another piece of equipment i really think that we underutilize so this thing's really great because this is going to help move the patient around but also have the patient help us as well all this is is that we can have the patient hold on to the handlebars, we can put those little blue flaps, have the patient stand on the steady, grab the bar, we can put the flaps underneath their backside and then they can hold on just kind of like a chair so this is really helpful if your patient can bear weight but they can't move long distances, we can take the patient, have them in this in the chair move them all the way the bathroom or maybe move them to a chair or another area of the hospital so this is the steady, this is also a great piece of equipment.

03:48 One other piece that you may see is a reclining chair and again you may see this a lot in your stroke units neurological units, this gives a lot of patient support because we can recline it we can set the patient up also there's a food tray here that you can use for your patient so when we're trying to promote lung expansion and good clear lungs in the hospital a lot of times we'll use this chair to get the patient out of bed. So now let's take a look at some other devices to help the patient get around a little bit better so first let's take a look at the wheelchair so know there's some variations on this, there's footstools, sometimes the side comes off so there's lots of variations so make sure you get familiar with yours.

04:30 What I do want to show you though is there's a standard wheelchair size so if you take a look at this it's not very big so this is not going to necessarily accommodate all of our clients so let's look at a side-by-side comparison of the standard versus a bariatric wheelchair so just know that that option is available for patient comfort. So before we go let's take a look at some other devices so as you can see crutch is here on one side now one thing to know about crutches it's really important you don't just give your client crutches and let them go, there's a specific way they need to be taught on how they walk with these also make sure these are at the appropriate height for your patient and lastly, we also have canes that can help a person if they really just need support on one side of their body so if you take a look at the image here you see that this has got four prongs, we call this a quad cane so there's variations of this so just be familiar with those as well. Thank you for taking a look at mobility devices.