What Are Restraints and Seclusion?
Restraints are human or mechanical actions that restrict freedom of movement or normal access to one’s body. Since the development of more effective psychotropic medications, emergency situations have become increasingly rare. In fact, some hospitals have moved to restraint-free policies. Seclusion means any separation of the individual from the general population of the facility or institution to which the individual cannot return at will and includes a situation where the resident or patient is isolated behind a closed door or prevented by staff from leaving a room with an open door or threatened with loss of privileges for leaving the room or area. In current practice, physical restraints are sometimes imposed on a patient involuntarily for control of the environment (curtailing individual behavior to avoid the necessity for adequate staffing or clinical interventions); coercion (forcing the patient to comply with the staff’s wishes); or punishment (staff punishing or penalizing pat
