Bactericidal clothes reduce infections in elderly bed-bound nursing home patients.
Infections in elderly bed-bound nursing home patients are serious care problems. In order to protect against infections we adopted bactericidal clothes (Sanmo Co., Kyoto, Japan). First, we studied how bactericidal clothes sterilise bacteria in vitro. The bactericidal clothes kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), E. Coli, Krebsiella and Pseudomonas aureus, over 99%, 3 h after contact, while these bacteria can survive over 18 h on conventional cotton clothes. Second, ninety elderly patients were divided into two groups; the control group and the "treated" group with bactericidal clothes. In Period 1 neither group received particular treatment for three months and in Period 2 only the treated group used bactericidal clothes for three months. The control group in Period 2 used regular clothes throughout. The number of febrile days was significantly lower for the treated group, compared with the control group. It is suggested that the bactericidal clothes reduce infections in elderly patients.
Sato
N
N
Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai 980, Japan.
Meguro
K
K
Yamaguchi
S
S
Aoki
T
T
Sekizawa
K
K
Yamaya
M
M
Sasaki
H
H