Bed pole advice!!
- Mr Arthur Hutton, aged 87 years, was found deceased in his room. The cause of his death was asphyxia due to neck entrapment.
- A bed pole, or bed stick, is a device utilised to assist a person’s mobility and independence in bed.
Mr Hutton was an amputee and at the time of his death he also suffered from dementia. He was known to fall from his bed, so his bed had been lowered and a mattress was placed on the floor next to his bed to lessen the impact from his fall.
Mr Hutton had fallen from his bed at some time during the night and the fall caused his neck to become entrapped in the space between the vertical bed pole and the side of the mattress.
This is not the first incidence where a bed pole has been identified as being instrumental in a person’s death. In 2006 a resident in a residential facility in Victoria died of traumatic asphyxia when she fell from her bed and her neck became entrapped between the bed stick and the bed.
The Deputy State Coroner has issued the findings as a warning to institutions and entities who use bed poles that in certain circumstances there is an element of risk involved in their use. The Deputy State Coroner has also concluded from the evidence ‘that bed poles should not be used in circumstances where there is a gap between the bed pole vertical component and the mattress, or potential gap if the device or the mattress moves, and/or where the intended user has a history of recurrent falls from bed, has a cognitive impairment, with or without limited mobility, or where the intended user’s faculties are compromised by medication’.
The recommendation has been made that any organisation that utilises bed poles should ensure their use is risk assessed in each application.
