By Healthcare Facilities Today

After 81-year-old Clara Marshall badly bruised herself in a tumble from her bed at a care facility in Vancouver, Wash., the staff urged her husband to buy a metal safety rail to protect her from another fall.

The device had only been attached to the side of Marshall’s bed for about five weeks when she rolled over in March 2007 and her neck became stuck in the railing. Marshall, who suffered from dementia, suffocated and died, according to an article in the Kansas City Star.

According to the article, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says there have been nearly 37,000 people visited hospital emergency rooms and 155 people died because of injuries caused by adult portable bed rails nationwide between 2003 and 2012, Most of the accidents occurred in private homes, nursing homes or assisted living facilities. More than 80 percent of the victims were over age 60.

Additionally, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received 901 reports of patients who became trapped, entangled or strangled in hospital bed rails since 1985, including 531 fatalities. Most were frail or mentally impaired.

In April and May of 2013, consumer groups and patient advocates filed petitions with the federal government asking for a ban on adult portable bed rails as “hazardous products” or for mandatory standards, the article said.

In June, the Consumer Product Safety Commission joined with the FDA to address bed rail safety with ASTM International, a nonprofit company that develops voluntary standards for more than 100 different industry sectors, from steel to plastics.

The committee assigned to write the voluntary standards for adult portable bed rails has about 70 participants, including consumer advocates, government officials, manufacturers and test labs, said Len Morrissey, director of technical committee operations for ASTM.

The article quoted Morrissey as saying he doesn’t expect an official draft of voluntary standards to be ready before the end of October at the earliest, and a final version realistically won’t be ready for at least another year.

Read the article.