Hand Hygiene Like a PRO: Prevent Infections

AmieAmie Regular
edited September 2010 in Life
How to clean your hands like a pro and prevent infections from spreading


Hand hygiene is the single most important measure to prevent diseases. If your hands are dirty, nothing is going to prevent you from getting sick sooner or later. Without proper hygiene, modern medicine means nothing. Teaching people to clean themselves and their homes is what makes us survive so much easier and longer than our counterparts from the middle ages, not our heap of pills and scanners.

A lot of people have no idea how to wash their hands properly. They just rub a bit with some soap and water and consider themselves clean. Medical professionals take hand hygiene very serious and have done lots of studies on the most effective ways to get all kinds of dirt and organisms off your hands. Do as they do: keep your hands clean like a pro.


Regular soap, disinfectant soaps, alcogels ... WTH am I supposed to do?


Washing your hands with regular soap is the most effective way to clean your hands. Disinfectant soaps are an expensive alternative which does not perform better than regular soap in real life. Alcohol and alcogels are meant for when you need to disinfect your hands so often washing will waste too much time and will hurt your hands; for example for nurses / doctors who need to clean their hands every time they switch patients. Alcohol and alcogels are less effective than regular soap because they only kill most micro-organisms, they don't remove any dirt. (Sidenote: alcohol of 70% strength can kill all micro-organisms, but to kill everything you need to really put the stuff in a bath of alcohol for a while. This is a very good way to disinfect medical instruments etc. but it is not practical for your hands, that's why alcogels don't kill everything.) Properly washing with clean water and regular soap kills most micro-organisms and removes them along with any dirt on your hands.

In summary: Alcogels are meant only for visibly clean hands which cannot be washed with regular soap for one reason or another.

The Moves
This is the most efficient and most effective way to clean your hands, regardless of wether you're using soap or alcogels. This simple series of movements cleans every part of your hands, even the parts most often forgotten: between the fingers, under the fingernails, fingertips and thumbs. (Crazy fun fact: a LOT of people forget to wash their thumbs! Sure, they get wet, they get soapy, but they never get a good rub.)

washhand.gif

When?
  • After you touched bodily fluids / excrecements
  • After you went to the bathroom
  • Before touching food
  • Between touching "possibly dirty" and "wanna keep clean" things

Strange flu epidemic roaming the world! AAARGH! HELP!

Hand hygiene is the single most important thing to prevent spreading diseases, including to yourself. The best way to avoid catching an epidemic disease is to keep away from people. The next best thing is to not touch other people or anything they touched. The next best thing is to clean your hands every time you touched something / someone possibly "infected". And, for the love of god, quit touching your face. Once you start to think about it, you'll notice you touch your face a hell of a lot during the day. Scratching your ear, rubbing your nose, rubbing your eyes, fiddling with that zit, adjusting glasses / make-up / piercings, biting / sucking fingernails ... You most likely do this a lot. And it is what makes you sick. If the flu is on your hands, no problem, just wash it off. But if you touch your face with those hands, you basically put the organisms in the perfect spot to start invading your body. Your face is like one big wide open entrance to your body: eyes, mouth, nose, ears, piercings, zits ... so keep your dirty hands away from it.

Now go wash your hands, 'cause keyboards are filthy.

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