Body Substance Isolation - Place of Body Substance Isolation Practice in History

Place of Body Substance Isolation Practice in History

Practice of Universal precautions was introduced in 1985–88. In 1987, the practice of Universal precautions was adjusted by a set of rules known as body substance isolation. In 1996, both practices were replaced by the latest approach known as standard precautions (health care). Nowadays and in isolation, practice of body substance isolation has just historical significance.

Body substance isolation went further than universal precautions in isolating workers from pathogens, including substances now currently known to carry HIV. These pathogens fall into two broad categories, bloodborne (carried in the body fluids) and airborne. The practice of BSI was common in Pre-Hospital care and Emergency Medical Services due to the often unknown nature of the patient and his/her disease or medical conditions. It was a part of the National Standards Curriculum for Prehospital Providers and Firefighters.

Types of body substance isolation included:

  • Hospital gowns
  • Medical gloves
  • Shoe covers
  • Surgical mask or N95 Respirator
  • Safety Glasses

It was postulated that BSI precautions should be practiced in environment where treaters were exposed to bodily fluids, such as:

  • blood, semen, preseminal fluid, vaginal secretions, synovial fluid, amniotic fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, pleural fluid, peritoneal fluid, marrow, pericardial fluid, feces, nasal secretions, urine, vomitus, sputum, mucus, cervical mucus, phlegm, saliva, breastmilk, colostrum, and secretions and blood from the umbilical cord

Such infection control techniques that were recommended following the AIDS outbreak in the 1980s. Every patient was treated as if infected and therefore precautions were taken to minimize risk. Other conditions which called for minimizing risks with BSI:

  • Diseases with air-borne transmission (e.g., tuberculosis)
  • Diseases with droplet transmission (e.g., mumps, rubella, influenza, pertussis)
  • Transmission by direct or indirect contact with dried skin (e.g., colonisation with MRSA) or contaminated surfaces
  • Prion diseases (e.g., Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease)

or any combination of the above.

Read more about this topic:  Body Substance Isolation

Famous quotes containing the words place of, place, body, substance, isolation, practice and/or history:

    The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.
    Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)

    In place of a world, there is a city, a point, in which the whole life of broad regions is collecting while the rest dries up. In place of a type-true people, born of and grown on the soil, there is a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman and especially that highest form of countryman, the country gentleman.
    Oswald Spengler (1880–1936)

    Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosophers’ stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases ... but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ‘tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
    Robert Burton (1577–1640)

    I do not remember anything which Confucius has said directly respecting man’s “origin, purpose, and destiny.” He was more practical than that. He is full of wisdom applied to human relations,—to the private life,—the family,—government, etc. It is remarkable that, according to his own account, the sum and substance of his teaching is, as you know, to do as you would be done by.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    There is a very holy and a very terrible isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny in affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely search of the spirit for the right perhaps no man can assist.
    Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    Kindness is a virtue neither modern nor urban. One almost unlearns it in a city. Towns have their own beatitude; they are not unfriendly; they offer a vast and solacing anonymity or an equally vast and solacing gregariousness. But one needs a neighbor on whom to practice compassion.
    Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)

    We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.
    José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)