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Things that go bump, boom,
bang in the night
If a good night's sleep can help
your patients heal, they'd better check out of the hospital
By Marcello Palmieri
It's two o'clock in the morning
and as Paul Harrison, a 53-year-old architect from Calgary,
drifts back and forth between that dreamy state and
consciousness, the one thing he wants more than anything
in the world is to get a decent night's sleep. After
all, he recently underwent cardiac surgery and a good
rest is just what his doctor ordered. But instead of
the sandman, all Mr Harrison gets are doors squeaking,
monitors beeping and telephones ringing endlessly. Instead
of being in a "keep quiet zone," he feels like he's
listening to a tone-deaf mariachi band on speed.
Dr David Yue, a family physician
from Edmonton, sympathizes with cases like Mr Harrison's.
"It's extremely important for patients to get their
sleep because if they don't, they won't recuperate as
quickly and as well as they could." Cheryl Cmiel, a
nurse at Mayo's St Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota,
agrees. She heard so many patients complaining about
how they couldn't get any shuteye that she and other
researchers placed noise-measuring dosimeters in three
empty patient rooms in the thoracic surgery unit from
10pm to seven am to measure decibel (dB) levels. Ms
Cmiel and fellow nurse Dawn Gasser, another of the researchers,
even slept in a semiprivate room in a unit with equipment
typically used for a thoracic surgery patient's stay.
Their results were published recently in the American
Journal of Nursing.
The researchers discovered that
at the seven am shift change, the dosimeter readings
reached an alarming 113dB, which is about equivalent
to the noise a jackhammer makes.
They recommended some much-needed
changes that, after being implemented, reduced the hospital
noise levels to a more tolerable 86dB. The take-home
message here is that doing a little can go a long way
if the hospital staff is made aware of the need to minimize
noise levels � something patients like Mr Harrison would
no doubt appreciate.
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