Wax Baths for Hand Therapy

[Brown, Saffron J]

Hi all

I am looking for some guidelines around the use of “wax baths” used in
community health centres.

These baths are large basins with paraffin wax which is heated up and
patients place their hands in it for 15 minutes as part of rehab for
arthritis, scar tissue etc

If anybody can direct me to or share with me some written guidelines it
would be much appreciated.

Regards

Saffron

____________________________________

Saffron Brown

Clinical Nurse Consultant – Infection Control

Tasmanian Infection Prevention & Control Unit (TIPCU)

Department of Health & Human Services

25 Argyle St

GPO Box 125 Hobart TAS 7001

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[Sue Greig]

Hi Saffron,
We have a hand unit here at Sydney Hospital and we don’t use paraffin wax baths due to the infection and safety risks but I do know it is extensively used in the beauty industry for manicures and I think they put the warmed paraffin into a glove and then insert the clients hand into the glove. However, I am sure there is varied practices. The Skin Penetration Guidelines from some of the States cover the use of wax but this is usually for hair removal, but the same principles apply in relation to bacteria/viruses and fungi. It is difficult to sterilise or disinfect wax, and significant safety issues with attempting to undertake this with large quantities of wax and therefore it should be single use unless you have process in place for thermal disinfection – e.g. code of practice for skin penetration procedures (WA).

Regards,
Sue

Sue Greig
Monday and Tuesday only
Infection Prevention and Control
Clinical Nurse Consultant
Sydney Hospital and Sydney Eye Hospital

Wednesday to Friday this position is covered by
Yao Yu (George) and he can be contacted on the same contact details

(02) 9382 7199 (direct)
yao.yu@sesiahs.health.nsw.gov.au
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

Hi all

I am looking for some guidelines around the use of “wax baths” used in community health centres.
These baths are large basins with paraffin wax which is heated up and patients place their hands in it for 15 minutes as part of rehab for arthritis, scar tissue etc
If anybody can direct me to or share with me some written guidelines it would be much appreciated.
Regards
Saffron

____________________________________

Saffron Brown

Clinical Nurse Consultant – Infection Control

Tasmanian Infection Prevention & Control Unit (TIPCU)

Department of Health & Human Services

25 Argyle St

GPO Box 125 Hobart TAS 7001

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER
The information in this transmission may be confidential and/or protected by legal professional privilege, and is intended only for the person or persons to whom it is addressed. If you are not such a person, you are warned that any disclosure, copying or dissemination of the information is unauthorised. If you have received the transmission in error, please immediately contact this office by telephone, fax or email, to inform us of the error and to enable arrangements to be made for the destruction of the transmission, or its return at our cost. No liability is accepted for any unauthorised use of the information contained in this transmission. If the transmission contains advice, the advice is based on instructions in relation to, and is provided to the addressee in connection with, the matter mentioned above. Responsibility is not accepted for reliance upon it by any other person or for any other purpose.
Messages posted to this list are solely the opinion of the authors, and do not represent the opinion of AICA.

Archive of all messages are available at http://aicalist.org.au/archives – registration and login required.

Replies to this message will be directed back to the list. To create a new message send an email to aicalist@aicalist.org.au

To send a message to the list administrator send an email to aicalist-request@aicalist.org.au.

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