EXAMPLES OF MEDICAL ASEPSIS SKIN

Modified from Philips N: In: Berry and Kohn’s operating room technique, ed 11, St Louis, Mo., 2007, Mosby.

Procedures carried out for the destruction of pathogens at the end of the surgical procedure in the operating room (OR) after the patient has been removed. Method by which contamination with microorganisms is prevented to maintain sterility throughout the surgical procedure. Procedures followed to protect personnel from contact with the blood and body fluids of patients.Īrea around the site of incision into tissue or the site of introduction of an instrument into a body orifice that has been prepared using sterile supplies and equipment. Item is sterile to its highest degree.Īwareness of sterile, unsterile, clean, and contaminated areas, objects, and individuals and their proximity to each other. Transmission of microorganisms from patient to patient or from inanimate object to patient.Ĭleaning and disinfecting or sterilizing processes carried out to make contaminated items safe to handle.Ĭhemical or mechanical (friction) destruction of pathogens. Method to prevent contamination by microorganisms.Ī material used to reduce or inhibit the migration or transmission of microorganisms in the environment: personnel attire and gowns, furniture and patient drapes, equipment and supply packaging, and ventilating filters.

EXAMPLES OF MEDICAL ASEPSIS SKIN

Used primarily on skin to stop the growth of resident flora.Ībsence of microorganisms that cause disease. Inorganic chemical compounds that combat sepsis by inhibiting the growth of microorganisms without necessarily killing them. It was not until the 1960s that the first commercially available pre-sterilized gloves were manufactured by the Ansell Company.Prevention of sepsis by exclusion, destruction, or inhibition of growth or multiplication of microorganisms from body tissues and fluids. Autoclaves were also used to disinfect the gloves and gowns. It became clear that disinfecting the gloves in this way and adhering to aseptic techniques in the operating theatre was a superior method. In 1890 William Stewart Halstead requested that the Goodyear Rubber Company make a pair of thin rubber gloves, initially with the intention that they protect his hands an those of his nurses from the caustic effects of the phenol disinfectant that was still being used. In the later decades of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, sterilized surgical gowns and gloves became more commonplace. They also began to realize the downsides to the use of disinfectants, including the fact that they were highly poisonous, and their entry into a wound was often severely damaging. This led the medical community to stop relying solely on antiseptic techniques and emphasize asepsis as well. Robert Koch, through his work with anthrax and tuberculosis, demonstrated that particular diseases were the result of the presence of specific microorganisms within the body, and so strongly reinforced the work of Louis Pasteur and the idea of asepsis. Although this was effective, he failed to recognise the importance of asepsis at the time. He would sterilize the operating theatre and surgical tools with phenol, and even soak bandages in the substance before dressing wounds.

Antisepsis or asepsis?Īntiseptic surgery was largely pioneered by Joseph Lister in the 1860s, when he used phenol (known at the time as carbolic acid) as a disinfectant.

It was found that a majority of deaths at these hospitals were entirely preventable through aseptic techniques, and the changes she implemented saved many lives during this period. Similarly, having noted the poor condition of hospitals where soldiers were placed during the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale collected extensive data regarding the number and cause of death of these soldiers over a two year period. The number of deaths due to infection on these maternity wards dropped dramatically following the implementation of this rule. He introduced hand washing procedures on these wards. In the 1840s, the Hungarian surgeon Ignaz Semmelweis noted that on maternity wards where doctors who also worked in other areas of the hospital were present, the mortality rates were significantly higher than on those wards that were operated by midwives only. Natural product SSP derived from a Chinese herb may have broad antiviral activities against respiratory viral infections.Studies explore how differences in skin composition may lead to dermatological conditions.Gut commensal bacteria promote the development of virus-induced cancer by suppressing the immune system.

Examples of medical asepsis