Types of Processes and Equipment to Relocate a Patient with a Spinal Injury

The spine is one of the most important parts of the human body. And if it’s injured in any way, the whole body might be affected. Hence, if any patient who sustains a spinal injury, it’s important to treat them in an extremely careful manner. And the best way to do it is to use a spineboard for this purpose. A spineboard provides great support to the people who have suffered spine injuries.

To ensure that a person who has received a spine injury is safe, it is important to carry the patient properly from the accident scene to a proper medical center. The victim must be retrieved and taken to the hospital for treatment on the equipment properly.It is important to handle the equipment in the right way to ensure that the patient’s injury to the spine is not aggravated.

Here’s a list of processes and equipment needed to relocate a patient with spinal injury.

Log Rolling

This is a process to move a patient without causing any type of flexing of the spinal column of the person. So, log rolling is regarded as one of the most effective ways to move a person on to a spineboard if they have injured their spine in an accident.

Log rolling has definite steps while performing. If you’re log rolling a patient, you must:

• stretchtheir legs properly.
• hold the head of the patient high.
• immobilize the neck of the patient.

If you can perform these steps properly, log rolling the patient or the victim on the spineboard becomes easy. Thus, you can ensure that the victim’s spine is not further injured while carrying him to the hospital.

Scoop Stretcher

Heard of scoop stretcher?

This is an equipment which can come in handy if you’re looking to help a victim of spinal injury. It is one of the most effective ways of treating a person who has spinal injury. It is easy to perform and ensures that a specific part of the patient’s body, which has received maximum injury, does not move too much. You can also use the belts provided in the scoop stretcher to bind the patient to it. This ensures that the patient won’t fall down from the stretcher or move too dangerously on it, which might otherwise aggravate the spine injury. If you’re planning to relocate the patient of spinal injury a short distance, the scoop stretcher might be a great option.

Flexible Stretchers

When a person suffers from a spine injury, the most important thing that the healthcare professional recommends is that the spine must be kept at rest. It should not suffer from any additional injury. So, putting the patient on a hard stretcher is usually not recommended.

This is why you need a flexible stretcher.

How can a flexible stretcher help you?

As the name suggests, it is made from a material, which allows the size of the stretcher to increase a little bit, if necessary. These stretchers usually contain wooden slats. While these slats help to increase the durability of the stretcher, they really decrease the flexibility. Hence, it is important to choose the flexible stretchers that come without the hard materials.

Basket Stretcher

A basket stretcher, as the name suggests, is shaped just like a basket. So, you can use it to rescue patients with spinal injury. The patient can be placed on the stretcher, inside the basket. It ensures that the patient won’t fall down while being carried to an effective place.

Conclusion

The use of spineboards is extremely important during certain situations. There are different types of accidents where the spine of the victim might be injured severely. If such a victim is relocated without proper care, the effects can be dangerous. The injury might get increased. Besides, improper relocation of the victim of a spine injury can even lead to a neurological disorder, which can result in paralysis. This is where a spineboard becomes relevant. It ensures that the spinal injury of the patient doesn’t take a turn for the worse when they are relocated on a spineboard. However, the patient must not be kept on the spineboard for a long time. In fact, you ideally would only keep the patient on the spineboard for a maximum of 20 minutes.

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