Low stimulus environments: reducing noise levels in continuing care.

In the low stimulus environment project, we aimed to reduce the levels of intrusive background noise on an older adult mental health ward, combining a very straightforward measure on decibel levels with a downstream measure of reduced distress and agitation as expressed in incidents of violence. This project on reducing background noise levels on older adult wards stemmed from work the team had done on reducing levels of violence and aggression. We approached the problem using quality improvement methods.