In hospital beds, shouldn't leg amputees have all four bedrails up because of balance issues?

My Nurse Manger sez that JCAH thinks more than 2 siderails up is considered a "restraint" in a medical setting. I think this is nonsense and think that four rails should be up with double leg amputees because of balance issues.

when i was in the hospital after my motorcycle accident, my nurses wanted to put up all my rails and i told them not to as i am clostphobia and i would be ok with only the upper body rails and they were ok with it, i am an above the knee amputee and had to do a lot of rehab for balance and transferring into the wheelchair.
i would just talk to the nurses, as long as you are not a threat to yourself they will work with you. i had great nurses and doctors at my hospital and rehab center.
i actually ended up keeping an eye on my room mate who was in her 80's because she would get up and fall and i would have to YELL for the nurses that she fell and my loud mouth helped them when it came to her.
i hope you have a better time with transferring then i did, i did not have enough strength in my arms until i started to use the theraband to biuld my strength so i could stand and pivot to my wheelchair.

good luck if you feel the need to talk about you amputee i will be willing to talk to you it is good to have someone to talk to sometimes.

i totally agree with you,the only time any rail should be down in those cases is when they need to put the food tray in front of them,my mother was a nurse,and by that i also know that you have to follow orders...good luck

I lost one leg above the knee, and I can't truly remember whether I had restraints on my bed or not. I had a lot of people visiting me so, I couldn't get out of bed unless they let me. I just asked my wife about it and she said they had guard rails on both sides of the bed but no other restraints. She reminded me that, coming out of surgery from removing the leg, and coming off the medications used during surgery that I had two halucinations wherein I started getting up and out of bed, whereupon the medical staff came running over to my bed asking me, "Where do you think you're going??!!" I told them that my train was right over there and I needed to catch it, wherein they said, "Oh no you don't!!" The next time I did that I was seeing a bus "over there" and started to get up out of bed and definitely got the medical staff's attention again. I can't remember whether they used medication to help me come off the meds they used during surgery following my halucinations or whether they just had hospital staff stand watch over me. A couple of days later when they had me up on a walker and getting me used to being without my right leg, I was standing in the hallway right outside my hospital room which was very near the nurses station, and I just suddenly fell while I was standing still. Somehow I had just lost my equilibrium just standing there. It was certainly painful and scarey as I put out my right leg, which was almost totally gone, to stop my fall, and landed right on the stub or nub of it against the hospital floor. So balances issues are definitely, or SHOULD definitely be an issue. And their liability in such cases is extremely high, so I can understand using them using guardrails or some kind of restraint on both sides of the bed. God Bless you and good luck on your rehab.