Body Mechanics (1 CEU)

Nursing job requirements includes lifting, moving and carrying objects. Not surprisingly, nursing ranks among the worst occupations in relation to work-related injuries pushing nearly half of the profession into an early retirement. Nursing staff often experience musculoskeletal disorders at a rate exceeding that of workers in construction, mining, and manufacturing. These injuries are due in large part to repeated manual patient handling activities, often involving heavy manual lifting associated with transferring, and re-positioning patients and working in extremely awkward postures.

The problem of lifting patients is compounded by the increasing weight of patients to be lifted due to the obesity epidemic in the United States and the rapidly increasing number of older people who require assistance with the activities of daily living. Due to nature of their duties, nurse aides are subject to back and other injuries to the body so practicing correct body mechanics is critical. Proper use of body mechanics maximizes strength, minimizes fatigue, avoids muscle strain and injury, and assures personal and patient’s safety

Learning Objectives:

After completion of this program, the home health nurse aide/nurse assistant will be able to:

• Define the meaning of ergonomics
• Describe three principles of good body mechanics that help prevent injuries
• Describe two principles of safety to apply when moving the patient.
• Define the purpose of a gait belt.
• Explain the steps in repositioning the patient.

Instructions for taking the course

To complete the course successfully, you must go through all the lessons below. You MUST mark each lesson as complete by clicking the MARK COMPLETE BUTTON. If you do not click the mark complete button, you will not be allowed to proceed to the next lesson. Please notice that all lessons have a minimum set amount of time that you are expected to spend on each lesson. You will not be allowed to Mark the Lesson Complete until the timer resets to zero; that is, until the minimum time set for the course has passed. For example if lesson A has an allocated minimum time of 10 minutes, you will have to wait 10 minutes before you can mark Lesson A complete. The Mark Complete button for lesson A will be grayed out and will not become active until 10 minutes are over.

WARNINGIf you forget to click the Mark Complete button done, you will be prompted to go back to that lesson again and have to wait till the allocated timed minutes resets to zero again before the Mark Complete button becomes active. After all lessons are completed and they are Marked Completed, you will then be allowed to take the post test. If you successfully pass the quiz, you will earn CEU’s for this course and you can proceed to print out your certificate.

LESSONS & QUIZ BELOW