February is American Heart Month
In the United States and across the globe, cardiovascular (heart) disease and stroke continue to be the leading cause of death. In an effort to promote awareness among Americans and encourage them to join the fight against cardiovascular disease, Congress the President to proclaim February as "American Heart Month". The American Heart Association assists the President's Administration to draft and sign this annual proclamation. On February 1, 2010, President Obama signed this proclamation.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim February 2010 as American Heart Month, and I invite all Americans to participate in National Wear Red Day on February 5, 2010. I also invite the Governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, officials of other areas subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and the American people to join me in recognizing and reaffirming our commitment to fighting cardiovascular disease.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.
BARACK OBAMA
To learn more about how you can help fight cardiovascular disease, please visit The American Heart Association's website at http://www.heart.org .
MediTrain, LLC provides training that can improve the chances of survival for victims of cardiovasular arrest. For a list of courses, schedules, and online registration, please visit our website at http://www.meditrainoh.com .
A Letter from Dr. Chris Greely, Chair, Prevent Child Abuse America
Changing The Way We Think About Prevention
In a recent letter, the incoming Chair of the National Board at Prevent Child Abuse America, Dr. Chris Greely speaks about the negative impact that abuse has on children and society as a whole as well as how you can make a difference in preventing child abuse and neglect.
You can read the entire letter on the Prevent Child Abuse America blog by clicking here.
MediTrain, LLC provides training to childcare providers and the general public in identifying and preventing child abuse and neglect. For more information about our courses, including detailed descriptions and scheduling, please click here.
December 6-12 is National Handwashing Awareness Week
Wash Your Hands (courtesy of www.cdc.gov)
Keeping hands clean is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of infection and illness.
Handwashing is a simple thing and it's the best way to prevent infection and illness.
Clean hands prevent infections. Keeping hands clean prevents illness at home, at school, and at work. Hand hygiene practices are key prevention tools in healthcare settings, in daycare facilities, in schools and public institutions, and for the safety of our food.
In healthcare settings, handwashing can prevent potentially fatal infections from spreading from patient to patient and from patient to healthcare worker and vice-versa. The basic rule in the hospital is to cleanse hands before and after each patient contact by either washing hands or using an alcohol-based hand rub.
At home, handwashing can prevent infection and illness from spreading from family member to family member and, sometimes, throughout a community. In the home, the basic rule is to wash hands before preparing food and after handling uncooked meat and poultry, before eating, after changing diapers, after coughing, sneezing, or blowing one's nose into a tissue, and after using the bathroom.
Wash Your Hands: The Right Way
When washing hands with soap and water:
- Wet your hands with clean running water and apply soap. Use warm water if it is available.
- Rub hands together to make a lather and scrub all surfaces.
- Continue rubbing hands for 15-20 seconds. Need a timer? Imagine singing "Happy Birthday" twice through to a friend.
- Rinse hands well under running water.
- Dry your hands using a paper towel or air dryer. If possible, use your paper towel to turn off the faucet.
- Always use soap and water if your hands are visibly dirty.
If soap and clean water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub to clean your hands. Alcohol-based hand rubs significantly reduce the number of germs on skin and are fast-acting.
When using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer:
- Apply product to the palm of one hand.
- Rub hands together.
- Rub the product over all surfaces of hands and fingers until hands are dry.
Handwashing: The Beginning of Infection Control
Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian physician, first demonstrated over 150 years ago that hand hygiene can prevent the spread of disease. Hand hygiene as a practice includes performing handwashing, or using antiseptic handwash, alcohol-based hand rub, or surgical hand hygiene/antisepsis.
Dr. Semmelweis worked in a hospital in Vienna whose maternity patients were dying at such an alarming rate that they begged to be sent home1. Most of those dying had been treated by student physicians who worked on corpses during an anatomy class before beginning their rounds in the maternity ward.
Because the students did not wash their hands effectively between touching the dead and the living–handwashing was an unrecognized hygienic practice at the time–pathogenic bacteria from the corpses regularly were transmitted to the mothers via the students' hands.
The result was a death rate five times higher for mothers who delivered in one clinic of the hospital than for mothers who delivered at another clinic not attended by the student physicians.
In an experiment considered quaint at best by his colleagues, Dr. Semmelweis insisted that his students wash their hands before treating the mothers–and deaths on the maternity ward fell fivefold.
Unquestioned today as the most important tool in the healthcare worker's arsenal for preventing infection, handwashing was not readily accepted in Dr. Semmelweis's era. Indeed, his pleas to make handwashing a routine practice throughout the hospital were largely met with derision. Another 50 years would pass before the importance of handwashing as a preventive measure would be widely accepted by the medical profession. Sanitation is now a standard and thousands of lives have been saved because of Dr. Semmelweis's discovery.
MediTrain, LLC teaches the proper method of handwashing as part of our Communicable Diseases course. For more information about this course, please click here.
1 Semmelweis I. Etiology, concept, and prophylaxis of childbed fever. Carter KC, ed. 1st ed. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
Protect Yourself and Your Children from H1N1
H1N1 vaccination is strongly recommended for caregivers of infants under 6 months of age and for all persons age 6 months to 24 years. Please go to http://summitflu.org/h1n1clinics.html for a listing of upcoming health department vaccination clinics in
There are a number of myths and misinformation regarding vaccination. Please go to http://www.flu.gov/myths/index.html for the facts. Vaccination is free and safe for anyone who is not allergic to eggs. Doses of thimerosol-free vaccine are available for children under 35 months of age and pregnant women.
MediTrain, LLC provides Communicable Diseases Prevention & Management training to childcare providers in Ohio. For more information about our Childcare Provider training, please visit our website at http://www.meditrainoh.com/childcare/.
November is Child Safety and Protection Month
Only You Can Prevent Childhood Accidents!A Quiz...
Marilyn Lopes
Extension Specialist, Family Life Education
Cape Cod Cooperative Extension
University of Massachusetts
November is Child Safety and Protection Month! Learning to forsee accidents is the best way to prevent them. Child-proofing your home can reduce the risk of injury to children.
Check your safety knowledge with the following quiz:
1. True or False: Safety caps on drug containers are child-proof.
2. Which of these foods are often responsible for childhood choking? (a) hot dogs, (b) hard candies, (c) grapes, (d) nuts.
3. In recent years, the use of car safety seats for children has (a) dropped slightly, (b) stayed the same, (c) increased slightly, (d) risen dramatically.
4. True or false: An infant car seat should be used in the front seat so you can keep an eye on the child.
5. True or false: If your car does not have shoulder straps in the rear seat, or if the shoulder strap crosses over the neck or face of your four-year old, it is better to let him ride with no seat belt.
6. What type of home exercise equipment injures the most children? (a) rowing machines, (b) weights, (c) stationary bicycles, (d) cross-country ski machines.
7. True or false: Touching a hot stove is the leading cause of childhood burns.
8. Why are five-gallon plastic buckets, which originally contained paint, food, or other supplies, a danger to infants? (a) infants can be strangled by the handles, (b) they can eat the toxic materials in them, (c) they can drown in them.
ANSWERS
1. (false) Safety caps are merely child-resistant, not childproof - a toddler can often open a safety cap within 10 minutes - the cap is just a delaying tactic.
Tips: It's vital to keep drugs, even those with safety caps, out of the reach of children. Better yet, keep drugs out of sight and/or locked up.
2. (all - hot dogs, hard candies, grapes, nuts) These four foods cause more than 40% of all childhood choking deaths. Until toddlers have all their teeth and are able to chew their food well, they are inclined to swallow such foods whole. That can block a child's narrow airway and cause choking, a particular problem because of a child's underdeveloped ability to cough up obstructing foods.
Tips: Don't give young children small foods like grapes or nuts. Cut up solid foods in small pieces, and serve them in small quantities. Encourage children under five to chew vigorously; monitor their eating sessions. Don't let them eat while talking, running, or lying down. Don't let children toss or pour food into their mouths.
3. (d - risen dramatically) But car crashes remain the leading cause of death for kids under age five. Eighty-four percent of one- to four-year-olds and 83% of infants used safety seats in 1990. Use of child safety seats reduces the likelihood of fatal injury in a crash by 69% for infants and by 47% for children aged one to four, according to federal estimates. All 50 states have enacted child safety seat laws.
Tip: Don't think that it's ever safe to hold an infant when riding in a car - in a collision, the child is likely to fly out of your arms or be crushed against the dashboard.
4. (false) It is much safer to buckle an infant car seat into the rear seat.
Tip: Above all, do not use the infant seat in the front seat of a new car equipped with a passenger-side air bag since the deployed bag can seriously injure the infant by striking the back of the safety seat (which is designed to face the rear), according to the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration.
5. (false) Any belt is better than no belt - for a child as well as an adult.
Tip: Use a booster seat for a child age four to eight and weighing 40 to 65 pounds who has outgrown his infant safety seat. If your rear seat has shoulder straps, you can buy the kind of booster seat that raises your child so that the shoulder strap crosses his chest, not neck. If the rear seat has only lap belts, choose a booster seat that has a harness or shield, which will act as a torso restrainer.
6. (c - stationary bicycles) As more and more people buy exercise equipment, doctors are seeing a dramatic rise in the number of related injuries to young children. Stationary bikes injure thousands of kids each year, with more than a third of them suffering hand or finger injuries.
Tip: Don't let young children use or play with exercise equipment without supervision.
7. (false) Hot liquids are the leading cause of nonfatal burns. Kids have thinner skin and thus are severely scalded at lower temperatures than adults. Water at 140 degrees F. will cause a serious burn in three seconds; even at 130 degrees F. it can produce a burn in 30 seconds.
Tip: Set the thermostat on your water heater at 120-125 degrees F.
8. (c - they can drown in them) Each year about 50 infants drown in American homes after falling head-first into these large buckets (often kept for household use) while the bucket is filled with water or other liquids and left unattended.
Tip: If you have young children, do not leave these buckets around the house - and never leave even a small amount of liquid in them.
Reprinted with permission from the National Network for Child Care - NNCC.
(1994). Only you can prevent childhood accidents! In M. Lopes (Ed.)
CareGiver News (November, p.4). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts
Cooperative Extension.
Any additions or changes to these materials must be preapproved by the author .
COPYRIGHT PERMISSION ACCESS
Gretchen May
Tillson House
University of Massachusetts
Box 37605
Amherst, MA 01003-7605
PHONE:: (413) 549-8800
FAX:: (413) 549-6337
E-MAIL:: gmay@coopext.umass.edu
October 29 is World Stroke Day
The World Stroke Day Proclamation was launched on October 26, 2006 in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Neurology, to focus attention on stroke as a preventable and treatable disease.
The theme of the 2009 World Stroke Day is "Stroke - What can I do?" Per the World Stroke Organization, this question implies that everyone can do something about stroke. Individuats can learn their risk for stroke and do something about it, they can learn the symptoms of stroke and what to do about them. The theme has been developed to prompt individuals to take action against stroke.
MediTrain, LLC provides First Aid training for healthcare providers, childcare providers, and the general public which includes how to recognize the signs and symptoms of stroke and the importance of seeking immediate emergency medical care when those signs or symptoms are observed. For more information about the First Aid training, please visit the link below which best applies to you:
- I am a childcare provider.
- I am a healthcare provider.
- I am not a childcare provider or healthcare provider.
October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month
According to The American Heart Association, providing immediate CPR to someone who has suffered sudden cardiac arrest can double or triple the person's chances of survival. Knowing the proper steps to effective CPR could save someone's life.
Also according to heart.org, about 80 percent of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in private residential settings. Being trained to perform CPR can mean the difference between life and death for a loved one.
Approximately 95 percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims die before reaching the hospital. Brain death starts to occur between 4 and 6 minutes after someone experiences sudden cardiac arrest if no CPR or defibrillation occurs during that time. If CPR is not provided as soon as possible, the victim's chances of surival falls 7 to 10 percent for every minute of delay.
However, death from sudden cardiac arrest is not inevitable! If more people knew CPR, more lives could be saved!
MediTrain LLC provides CPR training for healthcare providers, childcare providers, and the general public. For more information about our CPR training courses, please select which of the following links applies to you:
I am a healthcare provider.
I am a childcare provider.
I am not a healthcare or childcare provider.
The American Heart Association strongly promotes knowledge and proficiency in First Aid and CPR, and has developed instructional materials for this purpose. Use of these materials in an educational course does not represent course sponsorship by The American Heart Association, and fees charged for such courses do not represent income to The American Heart Association.
