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Why Hands-Free Faucets May Be a Risk to Some Hospital Patients

June 16th, 2011 at 07:06am Under Health report

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Automatic faucets use an electronic sensor to start and stop the flow of water when people wash their hands. These faucets save a lot of water, which is one reason they are found in busy public bathrooms. Another reason is because of concerns about the spread of infection by people touching the handles on traditional faucets.

Hospitals started using automatic faucets about ten years ago. But a new study at one hospital finds that these devices may not always be worth the savings in water use.

Researcher took apart twenty automatic faucets at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. They found that half contained Legionella bacteria, compared to fifteen percent of manual faucets.

Healthy people rarely get sick from the bacteria. So the study should not concern most users of automatic faucets in public bathrooms.

But Legionella bacteria can cause a form of pneumonia in people with weakened immune systems. These include patients with diseases like cancer and HIV/AIDS, and those who have recently had an organ transplant.

After their first tests, the researchers cleaned the water system with chlorine dioxide. But they found that twenty-nine percent of the automatic faucets were still contaminated with bacteria. That compared to seven percent of the manual faucets.

The researchers have some theories. Dr. Emily Sydnor says the automatic faucets contain more parts, so there are more areas where bacteria could grow. Also, the reduced water pressure in low-flow faucets might not remove as much bacteria from surfaces.

EMILY SYDNOR: “We think that, one, the pieces and the parts inside are sort of providing places and surface area for bacteria to get trapped and probably promoting something called bio-film formation, which is essentially just a colony of bacteria that can sort of coexist in a little slime and a little, almost a little colony of it that it’s hard to get rid of. And that, combined with the low water flow, is probably promoting the growth.”

Six other studies have also found higher amounts of bacteria in automatic faucets. The latest study was presented Saturday at a meeting of the Society for Health Care Epidemiology in Dallas, Texas.

The study has not yet been published. But the results have persuaded Johns Hopkins Hospital to replace its automatic faucets with manual ones.

The Chicago Faucet Company supplies the hospital with automatic and manual faucets. Patrick Kimener, the senior vice president of sales, said he had not seen the full study.

PATRICK KIMENER: “Our company has been around for a hundred and ten years. We’ve been a long-term supplier for an awful lot of health care facilities in the U.S. and we’re more than interested to find out what those findings would be.”

And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report. I’m Christopher Cruise.

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Slow and Gentle Are Best in Treating Hypothermia

March 1st, 2011 at 09:12am Under Health report

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

We talked last week about ways to avoid cold-weather injuries. Today we are going to talk about emergency treatment of hypothermia.

Hypothermia can be mild, moderate or severe. Mild hypothermia is something that most people in cold climates have experienced at one time or another. You feel so cold that your body starts to shake — not very much, but uncontrollably.

The treatment for mild hypothermia starts with getting out of the cold and, if necessary, changing into dry clothes. Drinking warm, non-alcoholic liquids and eating something sugary can stop the shivering.

Taking a warm bath or sitting by a fire or doing some exercise can also help the body warm up. These are all common-sense treatments.

But treatment needs to change when people enter the moderate or severe stages of hypothermia. In that situation, their body temperature drops below thirty-five degrees Celsius. They lose the ability to think clearly. Their muscles become stiff. They might bump into things or fall over objects.

Members of search-and-rescue teams will first try to prevent additional heat loss. They will place extra covering around the chest, head and neck of hypothermia victims to keep them warm.

Hypothermia victims need medical help as soon as possible. Working quickly to get people out of the cold is important. However, hypothermia victims must be moved slowly and gently.

Any rough or sudden movement can force cold blood from the arms, legs and hands deep into the warmer middle of the body. This sudden flow of cold blood can create shock, a serious condition. It can also cause an abnormal heartbeat.

Members of search-and-rescue teams have a saying that hypothermia victims are not dead until they are warm and dead. The process of “rewarming” a person needs to be done slowly, in a hospital setting.

An extremely low body temperature can cause the heart to beat so slowly that a pulse may be difficult to find. In other words, a person who is suffering from the effects of severe cold may seem dead, but still be alive.

And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. If you missed last week’s advice about how to avoid cold-weather injuries, you can find it at voaspecialenglish.com.

We also invite you to share your stories of the coldest weather — or the hottest weather — you have ever experienced. You can share your stories on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Faith Lapidus

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