|
|
|
The N.D.s Corner:>
Stay Safe From MRSA in the Hospital
May 17, 2008
From: Askdrteresa
To: Support@feelingoutstanding.com
Sent: 5/17/2008 12:10:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Fwd: One Way to Predict if You'll Get Cancer
----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Teresa Latendress Naturopathic Physician http://www.drteresa.4t.com
Stay Safe From MRSA in the Hospital
My neighbor, a strapping young dad in his 30's, recently entered the hospital for a routine procedure... and almost died. His hand -- the site of a simple intravenous (IV) line insertion -- became infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which soon traveled up his whole arm. Resistant to common antibiotics, this strain of Staph can be extremely difficult to treat. Doctors opened his arm to drain the infection, bombarded him with assorted drugs, and he remained in the hospital for several weeks. Luckily, he recovered and is back home playing with his kids. But the outcome is not always happy for those infected with MRSA, especially if their health was already in some way compromised.
Unfortunately, MRSA may be more common even than current news reports and studies indicate. For example, MRSA was estimated to be associated with more than 94,000 invasive infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in the US in 2005, according to the October 17, 2007, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association... but these figures are now being disputed by health policy expert Betsy McCaughey, PhD, the former lieutenant governor of New York and the founder and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a nonprofit, who says that they should be higher. She says the statistics only account for one type of MRSA, the invasive form, which primarily becomes a bloodstream infection. According to Dr. McCaughey, "This statistic excludes all post-surgical wound infections, all urinary tract infections, and most pneumonia's." Her estimate is that 880,000 patients contract MRSA in a hospital, or 2.4% of patients. On top of that, community-associated methicillin-re sistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA), a type of MRSA acquired outside a hospital setting, is now a concern in schools and in the community at large, accounting for 15% of all infections.
How can you protect yourself from this life-threatening infection? Dr. McCaughey is highly critical of the precaution guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying that the CDC has consistently underestimated the extent of the problem with MRSA and has failed to take appropriate steps to help bring it under control. She believes hospitals should be held to far higher standards of cleanliness, among other measures. "Restaurants receive greater scrutiny for cleanliness than hospitals," she points out.
Dr. McCaughey supports universal MRSA screening as a standard part of hospital admissions procedure, plus environmental testing and cleaning for the bacteria as well. However, a report just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association did not find evidence of reduced infection rates in patients screened for MRSA who were put under special precautions if positive, compared with those in the control group. Dr. McCaughey is skeptical of the results. "MRSA screening has been shown to be highly effective in over 50 studies. Not one study has demonstrated that MRSA infections can be controlled without screening. The excessive delays in getting screening test results back to emergency surgery patients and their caregivers in the JAMA study could have allowed the germs to spread and could explain the poor outcome in the study," she says. However, it's important to point out that, though the standard needs to remain as high as it can be, the truth is it' s virtually impossible to keep any institution 100% free of the bacteria.
http://www.drteresa.4t.com
HOW TO REDUCE THE RISK OF INFECTION
Nonetheless, it is important not to be cavalier about the risk of MRSA infection and there are steps you can take on an individual level to reduce your own risk. Let's start with an understanding of the problem.
Bacteria normally reside on everyone's skin -- and Staph bacteria can be found on the skin or in the noses of 25% to 30% of the population as part of the community of bacteria all humans are hosts to, which is in fact necessary for normal immunity. Staph bacteria only cause infection when they somehow work their way inside the body -- for example, through an IV line or catheter or incision, which especially becomes a problem in individuals with compromised health or immunity.
In medical environments, including hospitals, people with MRSA on their skin can leave bacteria on surfaces such as stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. These are not routinely cleaned between patients, even though studies clearly demonstrate that they are contaminated with bacteria and can be a route for transmission of the dangerous ones -- especially in the hospital setting, where there are many ways this might be able to get inside your body, including through a urinary tract catheter, a catheter anywhere in the body, a surgical incision or other open wound, or a ventilator.
The first and perhaps most important thing you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones during visits to doctors' offices, medical facilities and during hospital stays are to strengthen your immune system so it can help your body fight any infectious agents encountered in a medical environment. (You may recall that I recently covered this particular topic in depth -- see Daily Health News, January 17, 2008.)
Dr. McCaughey's organization has a Web site, www.hospitalinfection.org, where you can read about "15 Steps You Can Take to Reduce Your Risk of a Hospital Infection." Here are some strategies to protect yourself from MRSA beyond just bolstering your immune system:
Before a planned hospitalization, ask your doctor to test you for MRSA. The screening test is a simple nasal or skin swab. If these bacterial strains are present, steps can be taken to shield you from infection, such as bathing with chlorhexidine soap, which will remove the dangerous bacteria from your skin, and using mupirocin ointment in your nasal passages.
Always, and especially in a health care setting, practice good hygiene. Wash your hands frequently with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand rub. At the hospital, speak up and ask that all caregivers clean their hands before touching or treating you -- they're supposed to do this, of course, but in truth, compliance is nowhere near 100%.
If you must have an IV, make certain that it's inserted and removed under clean conditions, and changed every three to four days. Make sure the area is well cleaned and the medical technician dons new gloves before giving you any kind of IV or injection. Again, this should be standard operating procedure... but it isn't always. Inform your doctor immediately if any persistent, raised redness appears at the site of the injection.
Before your doctor uses a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff or other equipment on you, ask that it be wiped down with alcohol or otherwise sterilized. Even though they are often contaminated with bacteria, caregivers seldom clean devices in between patients.
Ask your doctor to keep you warm during an operation. Research shows that people who are kept warm are better able to resist infection following many types of surgery.
Ask your doctor to monitor your glucose levels during and after surgery (especially heart surgery). When blood sugar is well controlled, the body more easily fights infection.
Learn more about MRSA at Dr. McCaughey's Web site, www.hospitalinfection.org.
Source(s):
Betsy McCaughey, PhD, the former lieutenant governor of New York and the founder and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a nonprofit.
www.drteresa.4t.com
|
|
