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. These rooms are typically equipped with floor and wall padding and can also involve impact-absorbing floor tiles and other safety features. We also design custom padding for sensory rooms, which in some cases involve more complex design features, such as soft-play equipment, interactive programming, lighting, audio, etc. 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. 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.
With the advent of many new medications and techniques to help patients, are padded rooms in healthcare facilities still necessary? That is a great question. While medication and techniques have greatly 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. All tools should only be used for its intended use. 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 SAFETY of patients and staff. Any tool in the medical industry can be mis-used and it is important medical facility administrators create clear and appropriate guidelines of how to utilize a padded safety room for the good of all involved as well as enforce those guidelines.
Gold Medal Safety Padding® is specially formulated for use in jail cells, time-out rooms, and psychiatric rooms where violent behavior may result in injury to the inmate, student or patient, or in damage to the room.
