The Chief Nursing Officer for England backed the a new campaign to get patients out of their pyjamas and up and out of bed:
Professor Jane Cummings, wrote "We know that for every 10 days of bed-rest in hospital, the equivalent of 10 years of muscle ageing occurs in people over 80-years old, and building this muscle strength back up takes twice as long as it does to deteriorate."
One week of bedrest equates to 10% loss in strength, and for an older person who is at threshold strength for climbing the stairs at home, getting out of bed or even standing up from the toilet, a 10% loss of strength may make the difference between dependence and independence.
A visit from Brian Dolan to Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) late in November 2016 to talk about his #last1000daysopens in a nw window work, and Ann asked staff what we could do to value patient time and they suggested we get more patients dressed. This created a good amount of discussion at the time and later that evening Brian, via Twitter, discussed pyjamas as a uniform for patients and lead to an international call to action?
The premise of #endPJparalysis is about enabling hospitalised patients to get up, dressed and moving in order to prevent deconditioning. The evidence of harm from deconditioning has been known for decades and yet we still allow patients to be immobile for up to 90% each day.
They hope this will go viral on social media is #EndPJparalysis, a campaign led by NHS-trained nurse, Brian Dolan, Director of Service Improvement at Canterbury District Health Board in New Zealand.
We have purposely not made #endPJparalysis into a project – there are no targets, KPIs or project plans – we are trusting staff to use their professional judgement and do the right thing for their patients. Brian Dolan and I have been clear that this is the best approach to its success.
I am incredibly proud that NUH has been a driving force in spreading the #endPJparalysis message and that the fantastic work of our teams has been recognised by Jane Cummings, the Chief Nursing Officer for England. wrote Ann-Marie Riley, Deputy Chief Nurse at Nottingham University Hospitals.
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