Growing concern over the availability of Respiratory protective devices (eg, filtering facepiece Respirators), in the face of the probable extreme demand brought on by a pandemic influenza, has prompted the suggestion that useful life of N95 filtering facepiece Respirator can be extended by the concurrent use of a surgical mask as an outer protective barrier over the Respirator. Personal protec...

Cough etiquette and respiratory hygiene are forms of source control encouraged to prevent the spread of respiratory infection. The use of surgical masks as a means of source control has not been quantified in terms of reducing exposure to others. We designed an in vitro model using various facepieces to assess their contribution to exposure reduction when worn at the infectious source (Source) ...

BACKGROUND Up-to-date studies are needed on the protection provided by face masks used by dentists. We assessed the relative filtering efficacy of two currently used surgical face masks (one a molded mask, the other a tie-on mask) and a certified personal particulate respirator, all made by a single manufacturer. METHODS The authors sprayed bicarbonate particulate against a porcelain surface ...

The instant measurements provided by the Portacount fit-test instrument have been used as the gold standard in predicting the protection of an N95 respirator in a laboratory environment. The conventional Portacount fit-test method, however, cannot deliver real-time measurements of face-seal leakage when the N95 respirator is in use in clinical settings. This research was divided into two stages...

OBJECTIVES The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) outlines specific requirements governing the use of respiratory protection for workers dealing with dust or other aerosolized compounds. Health care workers may be exposed to bone dust produced during otologic procedures, creating an occupational hazard. The purpose of this research was to quantify the total suspended particula...

The purpose of this study was to examine the heat stress effects of three protective clothing ensembles: (1) protective apron over cloth coveralls including full face negative pressure respirator (APRON); (2) the apron over cloth coveralls with respirator plus protective pants (APRON+PANTS); and (3) protective coveralls over cloth coveralls with respirator (PROTECTIVE COVERALLS). In addition, t...

This article presents a computational and experimental study of contact pressure between six N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) and five newly developed digital headforms (small, medium, large, long/narrow, and short/wide). Contact interaction is simulated using the finite element method and validated by experiments using a pressure mapping system. The headform model has multiple layers...