STANDARD HOSPITAL PATIENT POSITIONING TECHNIQUES

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION
a. According to registered occupational therapist, Kathryn Ryan, in 1989, work-related injuries in California reached "epidemic proportions" (over 370,000 injuries were reported, with 100,000 back-related). Ryan says that the combined occurrence of back pain at work and home means that "eight out of ten of us will suffer back pain sometime in our lives”.

b. Common injuries, such as acute sprains and strains, cause back injury.
Everyday stress and wear and tear can cause chronic muscle and joint strain that slowly builds up. Actual case load and specific duties play a role in the incidence of back, injury. But, the job of a radiologic technologist (RT) is somewhere in the middle as compared to other jobs for susceptibility to back injury (somewhere between light office work and heavy labor).
c. Most back injuries affect the discs, cushions of the spine, ligaments
connecting the vertebra, and muscles of the lumbar area. Bad habits like excessive bending can weaken the wall of the back discs causing disc strain or bulge.” The worst problem, nucleus protrusion; can require surgery. Protrusion occurs when the disc nucleus projects beyond the discs outer shell and onto the spinal cord or nerve roots. Loss of bladder control and paralysis can result. Bad posture, poor body mechanics, high stress, poor physical condition, and erratic sleep habits increase the risk of back injury. Bad posture can cause you back pain. Soft mattresses do not support the spine. Sleeping on your stomach can strain the neck and back

As an X-ray technologist, positioning the patient is one of the most routine, yet critical, aspects of your job. You may have to position up to fifty patients in the course of any given day. Though you may come close to knowing the steps for positioning a patient almost without thinking, you should never let positioning procedures become a mindless part of your job. Failure to position a patient correctly could cause harm to the patient. It could also involve the hospital and/or health care team in needless litigation. If you fail to position the patient correctly for a particular study, the radiologist may end up with an incomplete study and, thus, inadequate or inaccurate information to formulate a valid diagnosis.

If you fail to take proper precautions in handling, moving, and/or positioning the patient, you may contribute to a slip-and-fall injury or a radiation therapy injury, two of the four principal categories of patient injuries and the cause of malpractice suits in the radiology department. Therefore, although you may position many patients in a given day or week, you must never let the steps of the various positioning procedures become rote or mechanical. You must think about and put all of your attention into what you are doing at all times.

Subcourse Components:

The subcourse instructional material consists of five lessons and a glossary as follows:

Lesson 1, Body Mechanics, Patient Handling, and Positioning.

Lesson 2, The Order of Procedure.

Lesson 3, Positioning Terminology.

Lesson 4, Film Identification and Captioning.

Lesson 5, Positioning for Exams of the Upper Extremities.

Appendix, Glossary of Terms