Patient and family voice is a powerful weapon in decreasing seclusion and restraint

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The history of patients rights for freedom from coercive procedures like seclusion and restraint date from the advocacy of Philippe Pinel, , psychiatrist at the Bicetre Hospital in Paris during the French Revolution especially in his 1794 address to the Revolutionary Council where he advocated that the rights of citizens in the Republic of Equality , Brother/Sisterhood, and Liberty should also be awarded to those with mental illness especially when confined to asylums. This message has repeated been forgotten since the., Although after the Hartford Courant Report of 146 deaths in the United States over 10 years due to restraint and seclusion, mostly restraint , and including children who were asphyxiated while being ;held', there has been more regulatory and consumer and professional society recognition of the need to work towards the elimination of theses procedures via monitoring, use of alternatives and patient and family advocacy

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