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Personal Care

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Personal Care

Patient washing and skin care, oral care, medication aids, comfort products and everyday hygiene for aged care facilities, home care providers, NDIS participants and clinics across Australia.

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Skin is the thing that goes wrong first

In older and less mobile people the skin is thinner, drier and less elastic, and it tears rather than stretches. Skin tears are among the most common injuries in Australian aged care, and most of them are preventable with routine rather than product.

Stop using soap. Ordinary soap is alkaline. It raises skin pH and strips the lipids that hold the barrier together, and on ageing skin that effect compounds with every wash. A pH-balanced cleanser or a rinse-free foam does the same job without the damage.

Moisturise twice a day. This is the single intervention with the best evidence behind it for reducing skin tears, and it costs less than treating one. It needs to be routine and documented, not something done when someone notices dry skin.

Reduce friction and shear. Rinse-free washing with disposable cloths avoids the dragging that a wet washer and towel create, and it removes the basin, the water temperature problem and the cross-contamination risk at the same time. For a resident who is difficult to transfer, bed bathing wipes are usually gentler on skin than a shower as well as faster.

Crushing tablets: check before you crush

Tablet crushers and crushing bags are routine in aged care, and the safety point attached to them often is not. Not every tablet can be crushed. Enteric-coated tablets have a coating that protects the stomach or protects the drug from stomach acid, and modified or sustained-release formulations are designed to release a dose over hours. Crushing either destroys that design. With a sustained-release tablet the whole dose can be delivered at once, which is a real risk with opioids, cardiac medicines and some diabetes medicines.

Check the medication chart or ask the pharmacist before crushing anything unfamiliar. Where crushing is appropriate, single-use crushing bags keep residue from one resident out of the next dose and reduce staff exposure to drug dust, which matters with cytotoxics and hormone medicines.

Oral care is not cosmetic

Mouth care is the task most often skipped when a shift is short, and in frail older people the consequences are not cosmetic. Poor oral hygiene is linked to aspiration pneumonia, and dentures that are not cleaned and removed overnight cause ulceration and candidiasis. Toothbrushes, denture care and oral swabs belong on the daily care plan, not the optional list.

One thing about ring cushions

Inflatable and foam ring cushions are comfort aids. They are not pressure injury prevention devices, and international pressure injury guidelines advise against using ring or donut shapes for that purpose: the rim concentrates pressure in a circle and reduces blood flow to the tissue in the middle, which is the area you were trying to protect. They are fine for short-term comfort. If the goal is preventing pressure injury, the answer is a proper support surface, repositioning and a documented risk assessment.

What we stock

  • Washing and skin care: rinse-free foams, bed bath wipes, shampoo, body wash, moisturisers and barrier creams.
  • Oral care: toothbrushes, denture care and oral swabs.
  • Medication aids: tablet crushers, crushing bags and medicine cups.
  • Comfort aids: cushions, hot and cold packs.
  • Eye care: saline eye wash ampoules, eye pads and emergency eye wash stations.
  • Hydration: electrolyte powders and oral rehydration.

The guidance above is general information for care staff and does not replace a clinical assessment, a care plan or advice from a pharmacist or prescriber.

Related Categories

Shop by type: skin care and barrier creams and personal hygiene and grooming. See also continence products, MoliCare, aged care supplies and wound care.

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