If you are looking for a complete guide on how to use a gait belt then you are at the right place. Let us begin by understanding what a gait belt is.
Gait belt is a device that provides safety during movement and acts as a transfer belt for patients. That is, if a patient has to move from a bed to a chair or vice versa, the belt can be used to provide support. It can also help a person to walk if he or she is too weak to walk on their own. By providing ample support, it helps to prevent a person from falling. With the help of gait belt, the chances of a back injury are considerably reduced when you help a person to walk.
Depending on the requirement, there are different kinds of gait belt that are available. The most common ones that are used are about 3.8 cm – 10 cm (which is about 1.5 inches – 4 inches) and 137 cm – 152 cm (which is about 54 inches – 60 inches) in length. The material that is used for making the belt is leather, nylon and canvas. The belt comes with a buckle at one of the two ends. Based on the requirement, the appropriate gait belt must be chosen.
To make sure that the gait belt is effective and does what it is supposed to do, it is important to make sure that it is used properly. Here are the steps on how you should use a gait belt.
The first step is to put the belt around the waist of the person on top of his clothes. Make sure that the buckle of the belt is in front. The gait belt must be snug and there should be enough room to accommodate your fingers beneath it. After this, get a good grip of the belt and bend your knees. Make sure that you keep the back straight. After this, you can now either move or lift the person with the help of your leg muscles and the arm muscles. But you should take care to ensure that you do not use your back muscles while doing it. Another thing to be noted is that when you lift or move the person, you must try and avoid twisting your body. Once you have reached your desired location and have completed whatever movement you wanted to do, you can remove the gait belt.
The gait belt is also very much useful in the radiology department, where they use it along with xray table pad to help patients. It is quite inexpensive and easy to use and the use of gait belt is recommended by many medical professionals for helping patients who need assistance to move around.
