BitePRO Bite Resistant Clothing effectively helps protect special educational needs teachers (SpecEd, SpEd or SPED) as well as mental health care professionals and specialists within high secure hospitals from human bites.

• According to The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, bite injuries represent 1% of all emergency department admissions in the United States!
• According to an article by Helen Acree Conlon, MS, MPH, ARNP, titled ‘Human Bites in the Classroom:  Incidence, Treatment and Complications’ it has been estimated that at least one half of the population will experience some type of bite in their lifetime. Human bites are the third leading cause of all bites seen in hospital emergency departments after dog and cat bites. Human bites can be the source of exposure to body fluids, transmission of communicable diseases, infections ranging from cellulitis to osteomyelitis, and joint deformity from septic arthritis.
• According to data released by the UK’s NHS Security Management Service, mental health care professionals are far more likely to be attacked than other health care workers with a total of 38,958 assaults in 2008-09, accounting for 71% of attacks on health care staff during that period. However, the percentage of which involved human bites is unknown.

Mark Perry, appeared close to tears when attending the NASUWT (largest teachers union in the UK) conference in 2009 and telling fellow delegates of his experiences with disturbed ten-year-olds in Wrexham, North Wales. He described that on one occasion he was bitten so hard that blood was drawn.

Another delegate, Suzanne Nantcurvis, a geography teacher from Llangollen, North Wales, said she knew members who had been forced to pay for immunisations and protective equipment. ‘Biting is quite a big issue in special schools and when risk assessments are completed it is usual to put in the control measure of a protective arm guard,’ she said. (taken from UK newspaper ‘Daily Mail’, printed 16th April 2009)

Debbie Townsend, Physical Intervention Training Manager of the Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust (UK) says:

“Human bites can cause both physical injury, risk of infection, soft tissue damage and psychological distress to staff. Whilst our staff teams are usually aware of the potential for bites from records of previous incidents and preventative steps are taken, additional measure such as Bite Resistant Clothing, to protect staff from a bite may be beneficial.”

How can BitePRO Bite Resistant Clothing help?

We are all too aware that bite related injuries can become infected and mental health care professionals, special educational needs teachers and others could subsequently be contaminated with pathogens. Transmissions of potentially life threatening viruses, such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C or HIV are also a part of reality, hence clothing which can prevent human teeth from penetrating the skin of one of the above highlighted professionals must be worthwhile investigating further.

Looking at the potential and realistic consequences, especially following a human bite, we must look at all possible options in order to help protect mental health care professionals, teachers within special needs schools and others working within challenging sectors e.g. autism and severe learning disabilities, from such consequences. These consequences in the very worst case scenario can include death, in case a serious and incurable disease has been transmitted.

For these reasons, Bite Resistant arm guards have lately been issued to a number of professionals in countries around the world, successfully reducing the risk of workplace violence related injuries, severe, infections and bruising.

Please also allow me to point out that it is a very normal, natural and instinctive response (when in this case faced by a violent or distressed person) to want to lift our arms and hands in order to defend ourselves and protect our head and facial area.  However, we must acknowledge that this subsequently exposes our forearm and hands to a higher risk of danger of arm injuries.

In fact the majority of injuries found on police or security guards can be found on their forearms or open hands.  These are classed as ‘defensive injuries’, indicating a person was defending him/herself rather than attacking the other person.

For me there is no question about it… cut and bite resistant arm guards will significantly decrease the risk of injuries and subsequently reduce the risk of infections and cross contamination.

PPSS Group have also made available an additional model of their ‘Version 1’ Arm Guards, now also offering (padded) protection from blunt force trauma, protecting the wearer from the risk of infection following a human bites as well as effectively reducing the severity of potentially extremely painful bruising.

However, based on the many conversations I had over the past few years I can certainly confirm the main worry within most sectors seems to be the risk of infection.

Please take a moment and view our specialised online-shop, dedicated to BitePRO Bite Resistant Clothing & Arm Guards:  www.bite-pro.com

If you want to discuss the potential use of bite resistant arm guards within  your organisation, then please contact our BitePRO Expert Eve Ichim.

Eve has developed into a globally recognised and respected expert on bite resistant clothing for mental health care, special educational needs schools and secure/psychiatric hospitals and she would be delighted to hear from you.

Our clients around the world have learned to understand the immense benefits BitePRO Bite Resistant Clothing is bringing to the safety of their frontline staff:

“In my field of helping people with disabilities, we often face daily challenges but with the peace of mind that our staff are well protected, we are able to attend to the needs of the clients without having to worry about becoming injured. So far through daily use of BitePRO Arm Guards, my staff have not been injured on their arms while wearing the sleeve guards and are completely satisfied with the high quality products.” – Sterling Barbosa – Valley Achievement Center, California, USA

Take good care of yourself.

Robert Kaiser, CEO

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