Argumentative Essay On Restraints

In 2001, over 450 million people worldwide suffered from mental illness (World Health Organisation, 2001) and these numbers have increased by a wide margin since then. Using restraints in treatment for those who are mentally ill is a topic that creates a large amount of controversy. Many are concerned with how the use of restraints can affect the person and if they are necessary or if alternative measures could be used. The National Alliance of Mental Illness has indicated their position on restraints, “The use of involuntary mechanical or human restraints or involuntary seclusion is only justified as an emergency safety measure in response to imminent danger to a patient or others.” (The National Alliance of Mental Illness, 2001) There have

There are many types of restraints used as treatment for the mentally ill, some of the physical restraints used include; face-down restraints, where the patient is pinned down on the floor with their face down and arms behind their backs; posey’s, where there is a cloth vest placed around their chest and belts, which goes across the person and keeps them pinned to a bed or chair. There is also the use of chemical restraints as treatment; this is when medicine is used in order to restrain the person, the medicine would be specific to the mental disorder the individual suffers

Will Hall, who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder; talks about a time where he felt the use of restraints against him were unwarranted. He stated, “I was put in restraints - not because of anything I did but they said it was just for transporting me to the hospital”. From this it can be seen that whilst it appears there was no foreseeable danger to Hall or others around him, restraints were still used, arguably unnecessary. Hall also mentioned, “after being restrained I had nightmares that I was being raped”, this highlights the emotional effect restraints can have on a person and how if used for needless reasons, can have adverse side effects. As a result, this shows that the use of restraints in certain situations can be viewed as unethical. In February 2014, Joshua Messier died due to the use of restraints on him during a schizophrenic attack. Boston Globe told the details of the event where they stated, “his heart stopped during the guards’ effort to strap him down”, this happened due to Messier being suffocated from being pinned down in the face down restraint. Alike to Will Hall, this is another case in which the use of restraints can be seen as