Personal Hygiene: Why it is important

Outcome 1

1. Explain why personal hygiene is important

Personal hygiene is very important in life. It covers all aspect depends on culture or any way of life. It could be personal reason, social, psychological, or just the way of maintaining healthy lifestyle. For personal reason, it could boast self esteem, feeling good about self or as a way of making the self more attractive to others. In social reason, a good personal hygiene can project a positive image that reflects one’s personality and be more welcome to the society.

Health reasons, maintaining the self clean would mean being free from the risk of illness. Psychological view means opportunities to become more successful if you look more presentable. Personal hygiene means having good practices of taking care of one’s self and leading to healthy lifestyle. This is the daily routine of taking a shower or wash on the whole body, brushing teeth, combing hair, cleaning the ears, eyes, nose, nails and wearing comfortable and clean clothes, knickers, socks and shoes.

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Good hygiene protects you from illness and diseases, and it affects the way you feel about yourself and other people feel about you.

2. Describe the effects of poor personal hygiene on health and well-being

There are a lot of poor personal hygiene effects like Skin diseases, Dental disease, depression and social problems. In skin diseases, poor personal hygiene like not taking a shower or even wash may compromise the first line of defense of the body like the skin. The skin protects the body against micro organisms and if it is not being taken care well, it may cause dryness, scales, or even rashes or cuts.

Anything that causes any portal of entry of microorganism into the body would cause infection or even more serious diseases. In the case of dental diseases, if you do not brush your teeth as required it may cause cavities, tooth decay and inflammation of the gums and dental problems are painful and expensive.

Poor hygiene also cause depression. This could stem to general feeling of low self-confidence and self-worth or not feeling good about self. A sudden change in your desire to care for your body and look presentable could also be a sign of a serious illness. And in social problems, when you neglect to clean and care for your body, you will find yourself isolated from friends and family. This is because of unpleasant body odor, decaying teeth that cause bad breath or even unclean clothes. This would affect you to find a good job to making friends or even finding a date. Poor hygiene will limit you socially and make you feel alone.

Outcome 2

1. Explain how to address personal hygiene issues with an individual in a sensitive manner without imposing own values

You can address personal hygiene issues without imposing own values by merely setting examples or educating the importance of personal hygiene and the effects of poor hygiene. Sharing the knowledge about this issue may give them an idea what to do without imposing anything. Just being aware of the consequences about personal hygiene can make a person decide if this is better for them or not. Another thing is but the use of therapeutic communication with the individual who needs change in his personal hygiene like starting with a compliment or sighting examples or props or sighting demonstrations.

Another is to state your concern about the individual’s hygiene by the use of caring words. Like for example in the care home, if Mr. X always refuse bathing or shower, the thing that I do is to speak with him nicely maybe telling a story for awhile just to build rapport and trust then emphasizing the effect of personal hygiene and asking him what he thinks about it or feel about it, offering myself to assist him to do the procedures and end the conversation by affirming his safety. Involve also the client in making his personal hygiene care plan, by this you can expect an active participation.

2. Describe how to make an individual aware of the effects of poor hygiene on others

You can make an individual be aware of the effects of poor hygiene by sharing them your knowledge what is personal hygiene, the positive and negative effects of personal hygiene. You can discuss or show some props or pictures or movies or any other demonstration. An example of this if like an employee who does not take a shower before going to work, when he does not wear a clean uniform, this can affect his dealings with the residents. He might be having a bad body odor and if his uniform is soiled it might cause the residents to be uncomfortable with him. Onething, he might contribute to developing illness to himself or to the residents like spreading microorganisms. In conclusion in this situation, the manager should directly tell the problem to the employee. It may be so harsh and embarrassing but letting him be aware of personal hygiene is very necessary and he should not compromise anybody.

3. Describe how to support an individual to develop and improve personal hygiene

One way of developing or maintaining personal hygiene is to support them to the standards that they want. Like for example in personal care, take the individual’s lifestyle choices into consideration, respect their choices of clothes they wear and hairstyles. Like for example one resident in the home I work, I always ask him before bath if he wish to use bar soap or cream, if it is fine for him to use the flannel, what temperature he would want with the water in the tub or shower (if it is too hot or too cold), I ask if he use shampoo, if he would like cream or lotion. I also ask him what hairstyle he like, what clothes is comfortable with him, what color he wants to wear. If in case the resident is non responsive, I make suggestions and showing him his wardrobe. So, do not make assumptions about appropriate standards of hygiene he has to take. Encouraging the resident to participate in the activity is giving respect and dignity and though this, they develop understanding about their personal needs and would maintain it personally.

Outcome 3

1. Identify factors that contribute to good personal hygiene

The factors that contribute to good personal hygiene includes bathing or showering, if the person is unable to shower the he could at least have a wash, hair shampoo or washing hair itself, clean nails, wear clean clothes. Some people prefer to use some cream or lotion after wash or bath, some people use gel or hair spray, others also use deodorants. In brushing teeth, some brush their teeth in the morning and evening depends on their practices and some would go to the dentist for oral prophylaxis in a required manner. And one procedure that is usually being done by many is hand washing after using the toilet, or for carers or anyone in the medical team, washing the hands is done every time.

2. Explain how to support the preferences and needs of the individual while maintaining their independence

To support the preferences and needs of the individual and maintaining their independence, we must include them in doing personal care. We should see to it that their involvement is necessary to protect their rights as well as understanding their cultures and beliefs. An example of this is a patient who believes that having a shower everyday will dry his skin so he prefers to have it twice or thrice a week. As a carer, I should check in the client’s care plan if his wishes is granted or might discuss it with the team and if the client is allowed to just take a shower thrice a week then to maintain his personal needs, other means should be emphasized like stripped wash. This means we consider his preferences but we do not neglect the personal care needs.

3. Describe how to maintain dignity of an individual when supporting intimate personal hygiene

To maintain dignity of an individual when supporting intimate personal hygiene is giving privacy. Like for example if the client do his personal hygiene in his room, as a carer see to it that door is close or put a signage that personal care is going on during that time. Another is showing the client that you are professional in giving personal care, you have to build the rapport and trust of the client for him not to feel he is being abused and making assurance for him not to feel embarrass. While giving personal care like for example washing the client with flannel, you should always be gentle and let the client also participate in the activity.

4. Describe risks to own health in supporting personal hygiene routines

In giving personal care to individual, sometimes it requires a close contact where you hold the client, so one risk is infection. Infection might come from the client or the one providing the care. In other terms, some diseases are transmitted through close contact so the risk is high if you do not protect yourself. Protecting yourself does not mean you will never give personal care anymore, you just have to be aware that there are means to protect yourself or the client in acquiring infection or other diseases thru the use of PPE.

5.Describe how to reduce risk to own self

To reduce risk to own self is to identify the clients needs and always see the client’s care plan before giving personal care. The relevant data is stated in the care plan and it is your basis on what extent you deliver the care. Before you start a procedure, you need to wash your hands, wear protective clothings and after providing the care, you discard equipments used properly and do hand washing.

6. Identify others that may be involved in supporting an individual to maintain personal hygiene

Others that maybe involved in supporting an individual to maintain personal hygiene are the families or any significant others, friends, the medical team or the carers, nurses, doctors or any other members of the public.

Outcome 4

1. Identify underlying personal issues that may be a cause of poor personal hygiene

Some underlying issues might be poor health or illnesses. If a client is to weak to do anything because of he is ill, most likely he will not be able to attend to his needs. Another is the means of the person to meet the need of personal hygiene like for example having no money at all, and because of financial issue he might not have any conducive area to do his personal care, or even the use of water to wash himself, to use of soap or cream and many others.

2. Describe how underlying personal issues might be addressed

If the underlying issue is about illness or about being too old to attend to his needs, this is the time they are provided support or assistance in doing personal care. They are being assess and participate in the plan of care. If in case the issue is about financial, some institutions covers their needs and they should be informed of any availability of the term.