Health Sciences and Medicine
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Infection issues are of a great concern to anyone practicing dentistry. Dental practitioners must be as careful as possible to avoid spread of diseases. Dental patients may not like practitioners who do not pay much attention to cleanliness. It is absolutely true that many patients would feel uncomfortable with services. Dental practitioners must take serious measures to avoid infections and spread of diseases through washing hands, wearing gloves, sterilizing clip bibs.
Hand washing is indeed a major concern in the oral health education. Most people do not wash their hands simply because they do not pay much attention to the consequences. Hand washing should be stressed because of its importance. Females are likely to wash their hands compared to males because females are more sensitive than men. Fear of getting sick should however be the main reason as to why people wash their hands but not the knowledge that they are walking around with gross things as per the author (Kelsch, 2013).
Hand hygiene is very crucial since people use their hands in touching various things containing germs and therefore hand washing is indeed a better way of controlling infection in the oral healthcare. What makes most people not to wash their hands is forgetfulness and assumption that hands have not touched any infectious or dirty surface. Much attention should be paid to hand washing by dentists to avoid spread of germs and oral infections (Kelsch, 2013).
Disinfection may not be the best way of eliminating bacteria because not all bacteria are eliminated. There are anaerobic bacteria that normally remain even after disinfection. Most of the bib clips contain oral bacteria, anaerobic bacteria isolate from skin and anaerobic bacteria from oral cavity and upper respiratory thus causing risk of cross contamination (Kelsch, 2013). Disposable bib holders and sterilization of clips may provide better solution to these risks. Bib clips made of rubbers retain more bacteria compared to metal clips. There are other ways in which bibs may be infected by bacteria. Some of the ways include when the patients touch them, when dental practitioners touch them with gloves or when patient’s saliva goes into them. Author’s advice to use disposable bib holders, bibs without chains and less embossing as well as avoidance of taking the bibs to places such as eating places are some of the ways of reducing cross contamination (Kelsch, 2013).
Wipes are very important to dentists as a way of reducing bacterial infections. There are many infections associated with surfaces and can live for a very long time. Choosing appropriate disinfectant is very essential as far as inactivating microorganisms is concerned. Chemical formulations are indeed vital depending on the intended function of the germicidal wipe. However, effectiveness of a particular disinfectant largely depends on the instructions that are put on the labels (Kelsch, 2013). It is true according to the author that alcohol-quaternary ammonium germicidal wipe has numerous benefits compared to other wipes. Nevertheless the ability and effectiveness of this wipe is dependent on the instructions prescribed by the manufacturers. They can largely minimize the risk of spreading diseases in dental environment.
References
Kelsch, Noel. (2013). That’s gross. RDH Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/volume-29/issue-7/columns/infection-control/that146s-gross.html
Kelsch, Noel. (2013). Don’t clip that crud on me. RDH Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/volume-30/issue-1/columns/infection-control/don39t-clip-that-crud-on-me.html
Kelsch, Noel. (2013). It’s not a baby wipe. RDH Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/volume-30/issue-5/columns/it-s-not-a-baby-wipe.html
Kelsch, Noel. (2013). A Dental Patient’s Perspective about Infection Control. RDH Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/volume-32/issue-9/columns/a-patients-perspective.html
