help/advice please

[meoconnell]

I am submitting a grant proposal for funding to place sensory boxes on med - surg inpatient units of a large community hospital. We have done this work on our BH units. Objectives include decreasing falls/disruptive behaviors/observation hours etc. We intend to train staff and provide ongoing support on how they assess their patients for escalating anxiety, etc Has anyone had success doing this work outside of behavioral health and have any advice? We had interest in our first round proposal but I am being asked to tweak the plan. Also any advice on items that are particularly useful to include (I have to develop a budget and need advice on sensory based objects that hold up to infection controls standars to put in box.
Any help/direction/support is greatly appreciated. We are in Allentown/Bethlehem PA.

[Tina Champagne]

Would the items need to be for use by people with cognitive impairment? Sounds like it may be the case for at least some individuals even if just temporarily at times due to medications, etc?

I was able to use sensory approaches on all units in our community-based hospital - when I worked there (maternity, med-surg, emergency dept, etc). In fact in my book I wrote about a code we developed called "Code SAM" to help bring sensory approaches to other units as well. We first developed a cart and over time collected info about what each unit tended to use the most with the intention to create a bin or cart for each unit that would be most useful to their population(s).

Tina
_________________
Tina Champagne, OTD, OTR/L