Psych Safety Padding

Are you in need of a padded room in a psychiatric hospital, psychiatric facility, or another type of healthcare facility? Do you need to ensure the safety of patients and staff in your psychiatric or healthcare facility? Gold Medal Safety Padding is used in numerous healthcare and psychiatric facilities in the US, Europe, and Australia within their Psychiatric Departments, Emergency Rooms, and Detox Departments or facilities. Not only does quality safety padding from Gold Medal help reduce a facility’s potential liability from patients, but it can also decrease the number of worker’s compensation claims by preventing workplace injuries incurred by staff.

Padded Safety Rooms are also known as quiet rooms, calming rooms, de-escalation rooms, cool-down rooms, or seclusion rooms. These rooms are used to create an environment completely removed from outside distractions facilitating deep relaxation and/or contemplation within a safe environment. Our rooms are typically equipped with floor and wall padding and can also involve impact-absorbing floor tiles and other safety features. We also can design custom padding for sensory rooms, which in some cases require more complex design features, such as soft-play equipment, interactive programming, lighting, audio, and more. Sometimes a padded room is the most caring option for the patient and staff, and if that is the case, the responsible choice is to provide a padded safety room as an option. Especially when patients become a danger to staff through aggressive or violent behavior (i.e., in some detox situations), a padded safety room is a much better option for both the patient and staff than going to an extreme that could pose harm to the patient or the staff.

Are padded rooms in psychiatric facilities still necessary with the advent of many new medications and techniques to help patients? That is a great question. While medicines and techniques have significantly reduced the need for padded safety rooms, sometimes a safety room is the best option for the patient and staff. In general, you want to use a padded safety room if other less aggressive de-escalation and other preventive strategies have failed and there remains the immediate potential for harm to the patient or other people. We also like the terms “de-escalation room” or “calming room” for padded safety rooms because ultimately, what we all want is to have patients calm enough where there is no danger to the patient or staff. In other words, padded safety rooms should be seen as one of the tools in your de-escalation toolbox. We should note, that an underutilized benefit of a padded safety room in psychiatric facilities is providing patients with a calming place. Generally, in this scenario, patients are allowed to use the room as a calming room as they desire. In general, the patient is free to leave at their will when used as a quiet room. As a necessary reminder, any tool should only be used for its intended use. Padded safety rooms in psychiatric facilities are no different. Padded rooms should NEVER be used as punishment, to create unnecessary mental or physical suffering, or to establish dominance. A padded safety room is meant for the SAFETY of patients and staff. Any tool in the medical industry can be, and it is essential medical facility administrators create and enforce clear and appropriate guidelines on how to utilize a padded safety room for the good of all involved.