The measures, announced by Tipper Gore and members of Congress at the Capitol, will, for the first time, give mental patients protections against being restrained for punishment or for the convenience of often poorly trained staff. The use of restraints includes strapping patients to beds and chairs with leather straps and wrist cuffs, as well as wrestling patients to the floor and pinning down their limbs. The new regulations require the written approval of a physician before restraints can be used in most situations, and then only in cases where the patient's behavior presents a danger to himself or others. The new rules also would require that the staff be trained in the safe use of restraints and in safer alternatives that would make restraint a last resort. Members of Congress said the regulations were in response to outrage over reports by The Courant last October that 142 patients had died during or shortly after being restrained in the nation's mental hospitals, group homes and mental retardation facilities over the past decade.
Experts say the true death count is many times higher.
The Courant uncovered a regulatory black hole when it came to restraints, finding that deaths often went unreported and uninvestigated. Few abusers were ever punished, and dangerous institutions were allowed to keep their doors open. The five-part series also found that children suffered the brunt of the deadly abuse. Nearly 26 percent of the dead were under age 17, a rate nearly twice their proportion in mental health institutions. It will ensure that restraints are used rarely and only as a last resort.