SendyGames.com Medical Study Guide
Infection Control Study Guide
PPE • Isolation • Hand Hygiene • Transmission. Learn infection control vocabulary including PPE, standard precautions, contact, droplet, airborne, hand hygiene, and sterile technique.
What this lesson teaches
Infection control protects patients, healthcare workers, families, and communities. The vocabulary is practical: hand hygiene, PPE, isolation, transmission, cleaning, disinfection, and sterile technique.
This lesson helps students understand why different precautions are used for different risks.
- Separate standard, contact, droplet, and airborne precautions.
- Understand PPE terms such as gloves, gown, mask, respirator, and eye protection.
- Recognize the difference between clean, disinfected, and sterile.
- Connect infection control to patient safety.
Core lesson
Standard precautions apply to all patients because blood and body fluids can carry infection even when no diagnosis is known. Hand hygiene is one of the most important infection-control actions.
Contact precautions are used when germs spread by touch or contaminated surfaces. Droplet precautions are used for larger respiratory droplets that travel shorter distances. Airborne precautions are used for tiny particles that can remain suspended and require special respiratory protection and room controls.
PPE stands for personal protective equipment. It includes gloves, gowns, masks, respirators, and eye protection. The PPE choice depends on the likely exposure.
Sterile technique means keeping an area or object free from microorganisms as much as possible, often used for procedures where infection risk is high. Clean technique reduces germs but is not the same as sterile.
Key terms to know
- Standard precautions
- Basic infection-control actions used for all patients.
- PPE
- Personal protective equipment such as gloves, gowns, masks, respirators, and eye protection.
- Contact precautions
- Precautions for germs spread by touch or contaminated surfaces.
- Droplet precautions
- Precautions for infections spread by larger respiratory droplets.
- Airborne precautions
- Precautions for infections spread by tiny particles that can stay in the air.
- Hand hygiene
- Cleaning hands using soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub when appropriate.
- Sterile field
- An area kept free from microorganisms for a procedure.
- Disinfection
- Killing many or most disease-causing microorganisms on surfaces or objects.
- Asepsis
- Practices used to prevent contamination by microorganisms.
- Isolation
- Separating or using precautions for patients with certain infection risks.
How to think through questions
- Ask how the infection spreads: touch, droplets, airborne particles, blood/body fluids, or contaminated equipment.
- Choose PPE based on exposure risk: hands, clothing, face, eyes, respiratory tract.
- Hand hygiene is needed before and after patient contact, after removing gloves, and when moving between dirty and clean tasks.
Common mistakes
- Thinking gloves replace hand hygiene. They do not.
- Mixing up droplet masks and airborne respirators.
- Calling clean technique sterile.
- Forgetting eye protection when splashes are possible.
Memory hooks
- Standard precautions are for everyone.
- Contact touches; droplet sprays; airborne floats.
- Gloves off does not mean germs off: clean hands.
Mini quiz
- What does PPE stand for?
Show answer
Personal protective equipment.
- What type of precautions are used for germs spread by touch?
Show answer
Contact precautions.
- Do gloves replace hand hygiene?
Show answer
No.
Quick review
Infection Control Study Guide is designed to help students understand the language before they play the terms in MEDKIT 48 HOURS?! Review the key terms, then return to the game and test recall under pressure.
Study method: read the core lesson, say each key term out loud, answer the mini quiz, then play the matching game level.