Hygiene is an important branch of medicine

Hygiene is one of the important branches of medicine

Hygiene is a sci­ence that cov­ers almost all aspects of human life. From the ancient Greek, hygiene is “ὑγιεινός”, which means “healthy” in trans­la­tion. There are sev­er­al def­i­n­i­tions of this term, but to gen­er­al­ize, this sci­ence stud­ies every­thing relat­ed to main­tain­ing and improv­ing health.

Hygiene includes many sec­tions: hygiene of chil­dren and ado­les­cents, hygiene of food, body, hous­ing, etc.

Basic Hygiene Research Methods

To obtain an evi­dence base, cer­tain meth­ods are used in any sci­ence. In the case of hygiene, this is:

• epi­demi­o­log­i­cal con­trol, which allows you to find out such indi­ca­tors as the birth rate, mor­bid­i­ty scale, mor­tal­i­ty, etc.;
• san­i­tary inspec­tion, dur­ing which spe­cial tools are used, as well as inter­views. A cer­tain seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion is being stud­ied (stu­dents of gen­er­al edu­ca­tion schools or high­er edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, fac­to­ry or office work­ers, etc.). In con­clu­sion, con­clu­sions are drawn and a report is drawn up;
• san­i­tary exper­i­ments, with­out which no sci­ence can do. Exper­i­ments con­duct­ed in the lab­o­ra­to­ry, allow you to obtain the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion, which is the basis for the imple­men­ta­tion of cer­tain rules and reg­u­la­tions;
• edu­ca­tion­al and teach­ing meth­ods. The infor­ma­tion received on hygiene issues must be con­veyed to the mass­es, choos­ing the ide­al pre­sen­ta­tion for­mat, the right words. After all, all peo­ple, regard­less of age, place of res­i­dence, reli­gion, must adhere to hygiene stan­dards in order to pre­serve not only their own health, but also the health of the entire nation.

The main tasks of hygiene

The main tasks fac­ing the sci­ence of hygiene are:

• col­lec­tion of the max­i­mum amount of infor­ma­tion on the impact of the envi­ron­ment on the human body;
• intro­duc­tion of rules and con­trol over their obser­vance;
• devel­op­ment of health stan­dards;
• orga­ni­za­tion of pre­ven­tive mea­sures.

The Importance of Personal Hygiene

The goal of pub­lic hygiene is to improve the health of all miles of the pop­u­la­tion. In con­trast, per­son­al hygiene is need­ed to keep the human body healthy and increase the life expectan­cy of an indi­vid­ual.

No mat­ter how glob­al the achieve­ments in the field of pub­lic hygiene, the goals will not be achieved if a sin­gle indi­vid­ual neglects per­son­al hygiene. We are talk­ing about the obser­vance of the dai­ly rou­tine, rest, bal­anced nutri­tion, clean­li­ness of the skin, hair, mouth, get­ting rid of unhealthy habits, etc. Neg­li­gent reg­u­lar atti­tude to hygiene rules over time leads to health prob­lems, dete­ri­o­ra­tion in appear­ance, chron­ic fatigue etc.

Per­son­al and pub­lic hygiene are strong­ly linked. For exam­ple, the health of many peo­ple can be adverse­ly affect­ed by the fail­ure to com­ply with hygiene require­ments by just one per­son. This is espe­cial­ly true when it comes to pro­fes­sions that involve direct con­tact with a large num­ber of peo­ple.

Body hygiene

Main­tain­ing clean­li­ness of the body is extreme­ly impor­tant, because it is the skin that pro­tects the human body from the harm­ful effects of envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors. In addi­tion to pro­tec­tion, the skin per­forms a num­ber of func­tions. We are talk­ing about ther­moreg­u­la­to­ry, meta­bol­ic, res­pi­ra­to­ry, secre­to­ry, etc.

It is rec­om­mend­ed to take a show­er every day, using water at a tem­per­a­ture of about 38 ° C. Reg­u­lar and com­plete body hygiene pre­vents the risk of many dis­eases caused by bac­te­ria, fun­gi, etc. The fact is that at least 400 ml of sweat is released through the skin per day (this is at room tem­per­a­ture, and much more in the heat) and about 40 g fat. If they are not washed off, then the skin will become a favor­able habi­tat for var­i­ous pathogens.

Remem­ber that exposed areas of the body — hands, feet, nails need spe­cial care. Wher­ev­er you are, take care of the hygiene of your palms and nails, because germs from your hands can eas­i­ly get on your food.

Wash your hands not only after, but also before vis­it­ing the toi­let room, before eat­ing, after con­tact with small­er broth­ers, even if they are pets.

On the road, also do not for­get about body hygiene, wipe the skin of your hands with wet wipes, and dis­in­fect with spe­cial prod­ucts. They are pro­duced in the form of sprays, which is very con­ve­nient to use. Be sure to wash your feet every day. To reduce sweat­ing, use soap and luke­warm water while wash­ing.

Oral hygiene

Oral hygiene is the care of the oral cav­i­ty, which nec­es­sar­i­ly includes the removal of plaque from the teeth, in order to pre­vent var­i­ous dis­eases. Many of them are caused by fly­ing. Oral hygiene is both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al.

Dur­ing the pro­fes­sion­al, pro­ce­dures are car­ried out aimed at remov­ing plaque, teeth and fill­ings are pol­ished, and appli­ca­tions are also per­formed. Patients must be told about the basic tech­niques and meth­ods of hygiene, and if nec­es­sary, they are shown how to do every­thing cor­rect­ly.

Clean­ing is car­ried out using mod­ern sys­tems that gen­tly remove plaque, as well as stains result­ing from drink­ing caf­feinat­ed drinks, smok­ing and food prod­ucts with col­or­ing pig­ments. One of the most pop­u­lar clean­ing sys­tems today is Air­Flow. Dur­ing the pro­ce­dure, soda pow­der, a strong jet of water and com­pressed air are used.

Min­er­al­ized (hard) plaque that forms on the gums and under them, which is called stones, is removed using an ultra­sound machine. Be sure to take into account the fact that many stones can­not be removed at a time. It will take sev­er­al ses­sions to get a last­ing result.

The fre­quen­cy of pro­fes­sion­al clean­ing depends on many fac­tors. First of all, it is the inten­si­ty of stone for­ma­tion and per­son­al hygiene of a per­son. On aver­age, one to four times a year.

Clean­ing by a spe­cial­ist is manda­to­ry, but it is not a guar­an­tee of the ide­al con­di­tion of the oral cav­i­ty. First of all, you need to take care of your teeth, gums, tongue every day with the help of per­son­al hygiene items.

The habit of tak­ing good care of your teeth should be instilled at an ear­ly age. In this case, the exam­ple of rel­a­tives is the main thing, as well as the advice of a spe­cial­ist in oral hygiene.

Between reg­u­lar vis­its to the den­tist, each per­son should fol­low the rec­om­men­da­tions that will help reduce the risk of caries and var­i­ous oral dis­eases.

• Brush your teeth at least twice a day, and be sure to use a spe­cial floss to clean the spaces between them.
• Nev­er use some­one else’s tooth­brush.
• Try to min­i­mize snack­ing between main meals. Rinse your mouth with water after eat­ing.
• Use mouth­wash after brush­ing your teeth. When choos­ing it, be guid­ed by the advice of a den­tist.
• To choose prod­ucts for per­son­al oral hygiene (brush­es for inter­den­tal spaces, irri­ga­tors, pastes and brush­es, threads, etc.), it is bet­ter to con­tact a trust­ed clin­ic.

Personal care products

Prepa­ra­tions, the use of which allows you to strength­en, as well as main­tain health, and are used by peo­ple almost every day through­out their lives, are clas­si­fied as per­son­al hygiene prod­ucts.

They are clas­si­fied accord­ing to their pur­pose:

• for the care of the skin of the hands, feet, face, body, inti­mate hygiene. These are all kinds of gels, foams, soaps, mouss­es …
• for hair care. Per­son­al hygiene prod­ucts should be select­ed tak­ing into account the type of curls. They are nor­mal (shiny, live­ly, elas­tic), dry (thin, split, with­out shine), oily (seem stale with­in a few hours after the wash­ing pro­ce­dure), mixed type (fat­ty at the roots, dry clos­er to the tips). By choos­ing the right hygiene prod­ucts, you can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve the con­di­tion of your hair, regard­less of type and con­di­tion;
• for oral care. These are pastes, threads, var­i­ous rins­es, tooth­picks, den­tal wipes, etc.

Also, per­son­al hygiene prod­ucts include cot­ton prod­ucts (sticks, disks and balls), nap­kins, paper hand­ker­chiefs, dia­pers.

Intimate hygiene of a woman

Wom­en’s health depends on how con­sci­en­tious­ly the fair sex relates to per­son­al hygiene, espe­cial­ly inti­mate ones.

The vagi­na is a self-clean­ing sys­tem, but despite this, it is nec­es­sary to reg­u­lar­ly remove the waste prod­ucts of the glands and var­i­ous impu­ri­ties from the gen­i­tals (exter­nal). You need to wash at least once a day. If pos­si­ble, this pro­ce­dure should also be car­ried out after the toi­let, and on the days of men­stru­a­tion when replac­ing tam­pons and pads. Inti­mate hygiene involves the use of a sep­a­rate tow­el that needs to be washed fre­quent­ly.

Since the vagi­nal flo­ra does not pose any dan­ger to the intestines, the hands should move towards the anus when wash­ing. Try to keep bac­te­ria from the anus area away from the gen­i­tals. By the way, this rule must also be observed when using nap­kins or toi­let paper.

Par­ti­cles of mucus, liq­uid dis­charge, dust are eas­i­ly washed off with ordi­nary water, which means that for inti­mate hygiene it is not nec­es­sary to use gel cleans­ing prod­ucts or soap every time. The com­po­si­tion of such prod­ucts includes sur­fac­tants that break down fat mol­e­cules. Their fre­quent use can lead to the destruc­tion of the hydroli­pidic pro­tec­tive film of the skin.

Impor­tant: you need to use soap to cleanse the peri­anal area.

If it is unusu­al for you to wash your gen­i­tals with only water, then use spe­cial prepa­ra­tions for inti­mate hygiene. Also suit­able for this pur­pose is baby soap. Prod­ucts with an aggres­sive com­po­si­tion increase the risk of overdry­ing of the mucosa. This can cause exces­sive repro­duc­tion of bac­te­ria, an increase in their norm, which will lead to increased secre­tions, an unpleas­ant odor. In oth­er words, try­ing to do the best will only make things worse.

Women’s intimate hygiene items

Before buy­ing inti­mate hygiene prod­ucts, it is bet­ter to con­sult a phar­ma­cist or doc­tor. Such prepa­ra­tions are quite mild, they often do not include fla­vor­ings and dyes in their com­po­si­tion, in order to avoid an aller­gic reac­tion and irri­ta­tion, but mois­tur­iz­ing com­po­nents are intro­duced. And most impor­tant­ly, the acid­i­ty of such prod­ucts is select­ed tak­ing into account the char­ac­ter­is­tics of inti­mate areas. Neu­tral, acidic, alka­line gels are pro­duced. Neu­tral — serve as an excel­lent replace­ment for soap. Alka­line and acidic — are used in the com­plex treat­ment of cer­tain types of vagini­tis and can­didi­a­sis, and can also be rec­om­mend­ed by a doc­tor for the pre­ven­tion of such dis­eases.

Panty lin­ers are designed to pro­tect under­wear from secre­tions, and most of them cope with this func­tion per­fect­ly. But at the same time, the indi­ca­tor of gen­i­tal hygiene does not improve with their con­stant wear­ing, and some­times even vice ver­sa. Around the entrance to the vagi­na there are small glands, the secret of which is inten­sive­ly absorbed by panty lin­ers. Despite the fact that the work of the glands is accel­er­at­ed, the vul­va may lose its pro­tec­tive lay­er. This is fraught with the devel­op­ment of infec­tions caused by fun­gi and bac­te­ria. So only use them when nec­es­sary. Avoid using scent­ed pads as they can cause itch­ing and irri­ta­tion.

Some­times, to pre­vent such a com­mon dis­ease as thrush, it is enough to deal with your under­wear and replace prod­ucts made of syn­thet­ic mate­ri­als with cot­ton, and also devote more time to inti­mate hygiene. Poly­ester briefs that fit tight­ly to the body can be harm­ful: they do not allow accu­mu­lat­ed heat to escape, as a result, the skin sweats, cre­at­ing a favor­able envi­ron­ment for the devel­op­ment of fun­gi and bac­te­ria.

Hygiene of children and adolescents

Hygiene of ado­les­cents and chil­dren is one of the branch­es of hygiene that stud­ies the prob­lems of strength­en­ing and pro­tect­ing the health of the younger gen­er­a­tion. Require­ments and norms for the envi­ron­ment that sur­rounds the child are devel­oped and estab­lished, con­clu­sions are drawn about the body’s adapt­abil­i­ty to exter­nal changes. Activ­i­ties such as recre­ation, the edu­ca­tion­al process, sports activ­i­ties, etc. are being cap­tured. Pre­ven­tive mea­sures are being tak­en, the main task of which is to improve and, of course, pre­serve the healthy body of the child.

As one of the areas of med­ical sci­ence, the hygiene of chil­dren and ado­les­cents arose in the mid­dle of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. Among the school­child­ren of that time, cas­es of a num­ber of dis­eases became more fre­quent. We are talk­ing about neuras­the­nia, myopia, ane­mia, sco­l­io­sis, etc. Pub­li­ca­tions on hygiene, regard­ing the so-called “school” dis­eases, were aimed at elim­i­nat­ing and reduc­ing their fre­quen­cy. The authors gave clear rec­om­men­da­tions for action and told what exact­ly need­ed to be changed in the usu­al way of life. The main caus­es of dis­eases includ­ed poor ven­ti­la­tion of the premis­es, insuf­fi­cient light­ing, the com­plex­i­ty of the edu­ca­tion­al process, etc.

Nowa­days, the activ­i­ty of hygiene of chil­dren and ado­les­cents is based on the lat­est sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments and is an impor­tant part of the san­i­tary and epi­demi­o­log­i­cal ser­vice of the state.