“We are going to have to restraint him!” This phrase is often heard on medical television shows, showing a patient put into a four point eagle spread restraint in response to something as simple as asking for a glass of water, but is this reality? Do conditions like this actually take place in today’s modern medicine? Physical restraints have been in use in the medical field for a long time, and their presence has developed in the media as well. More often than not, the media offers a nasty depiction of physical restraints and the effects they have on patients. Today’s news and television programs use medical restraints for the sake of entertainment, showing restraints used in a way that has not been in practice since the time of Philippe Pinel.
