This story is a prevention issue as well as a safety issue. Here in my area, it’s summertime here in North America and all of the Northern hemisphere and we have a lot of people that are out and about including a lot of kids and adults who are engaging in summertime activities, bicycling, riding motor bikes, ATVs- are they wearing helmets? Sports injuries that occur because baseball players, softball players aren’t wearing helmets while they’re batting, perhaps we have coming up on football season here in the United States- are people wearing the appropriate athletic gear? All of these goes toward preventing injuries in our patients and so I would ask, are you doing something in your community to encourage people to take proper precautions? What are you doing to improve the usage of helmets in and around your community?
It doesn’t take much, maybe offering a flier to be handed out in community centers. Work with your public safety and public outreach people. If you’re working in a hospital, work with your public health department. If your working in a physician’s office, get the materials you need to hand out to your patients and their family members so that they can have just that additional reminder to keep safety in the front of their mind and that they should always be wearing helmets, wearing when its appropriate, and in many cases for children it is required by law but a lot of people don’t enforce it so it’s important for us to really encourage people to think proactively on these situations. I found it over at webmd.com; you should definitely check it out, talking about sports safety and helmets saving heads, so go ahead and check that article out.
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This article has been featured in the news segment of the Nursing Show episode Immune System Review and Episode 139.
