Ch 1

What are the major components of maintaining well-being?

•maintaining solid personal relationships•exercise•sleep•eating right•limiting alc and caffine intake •seeing your physician regularly and keeping up to date on vaccines

Pathogens

Organisms that cause infection; Pathogens can be blood borne or airborne; Standard Precautions include steps to protect self from pathogens; make decisions about which standard precautions (PPE) to use based on seeing the patient

OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has issued strict guidelines about precautions against exposure to bloodborne pathogens; written policies also address what to do in the event of an exposure to infectious substances.

In cases of TB what mask should you wear?

N-95 or high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) respirator approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

Hepatitis B/C

- infection that causes inflammation of the liver- can live on surfaces in dried blood for several days- Hep B (HBV) is deadly; killed hundreds of health care workers each year before vaccine was available - Hep C (no vaccine yet) possesses same risk.

TB

- Infects lungs- Highly Contagious - Airborne

AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome)

- Sets of conditions that results when the immune system has been attacked by HIV- Lower risk for health care workers than hepatitis or TB- Contact with blood is the is the usual route of infection

HIV

attacks the immune system, leaving the pt unable to fight off infection

Ebola

- People in the US infected in 2014- Hemorrhagic Fever - High Rate of deaths and lack of definitive treatment

Sever Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Spread through respiratory droplets

Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)

Found primarily on the Arabian Peninsula

Avian Flu

-Found in poultry; can affect humans -Not easily transmissible from human to human

Influenza

Around for hundreds of years 1918 pandemic killed between 30 - 50 million people around the world