In an effort to be one step ahead this cold and flu season, Golden Pond nursing staff members have been teaching our residents, staff members, child care teachers in our Golden Goose childcare center and even the children too, the most important step in illness prevention - hand washing. Done correctly, studies have shown that it is the single most effective way to eliminate germs and stop the spread of infection.

Here are the complete easy steps to germ-free hands:

• Wet your hands with warm water
• Apply soap
• Rub hands together to make bubbles
• Rub bubbles around for 20 seconds or sing happy birthday to yourself and get between fingers, under fingernails and up beyond your wrists
• Rinse germs away under warm running water
• Dry hands well with a clean towel
• Finally use the towel to shut off the running water and open the door if you a public restroom

Hands carry a variety of nasty germs including Shigella, the cause of diarrhea, E.coli, which can cause diarrhea or urinary tract infections, Haemophilus the cause of pink eye, Clostridium difficile which can cause colitis, Influenza A, pneumonia and Kiebsiell, Bacteroides, Pseudomonas aeruginosa all of which can cause a variety of infections.

In several recent seminars, we taught awareness of how germs can spread, when to wash hands, the germs that live on our hands and most important the proper techniques for hand washing.

To reinforce the effectiveness of hand washing we asked people to wash their hands then used a special black light to show the areas missed. Most people were very surprised at areas around the nails, rings and event wrists that hadn't been washed thoroughly enough.

Most people do not always realize when they should wash. Examples are before preparing or eating food, after handling uncooked foods, especially raw meat, poultry or fish, after handling garbage, when treating a cut, cleaning counters, after using the bathroom or helping a child who has gone to the bathroom, when tending to someone who is sick, driving in the car, after wiping noses, coughing or sneezing, after petting an animal or handling animal waste for example changing a litter box, and if you smoke, after smoking.