http://www.scribd.com/doc/36671085/Tetanus-Case-Study TETANUS Comes from the Greek word tetanus meaning taut and teiteim whichmeans to stretch.

It is also called lockjaw. It is a serious infectious disease of the nervous system in which toxin causes severe muscle spasm. It is a medicalcondition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers.It is caused by a bacterium Clostridium tetani . Infection generally occurst h r o u g h w o u n d c o n t a m i n a t i o n a n d o f t e n i n v o l v e s a cut or deep puncturedwound. Tetanus is often associated with rust, but this concept is somewhatm i s l e a d i n g . T h e C . T e t a n i i s a n A n a e r o b i c b a c t e r i a w h i c h s u r v i v e s i n a n environment that lacks oxygen, thus with or without rust a person may have atetanus once C. Tetani enters the wound. Contaminated wounds are the sitewhere tetanus bacteria multiply. Deep wounds or those with distallized tissue are particularly prone to tetanus infection. The tetanus toxin affects the site of interaction between the nerve and the muscle that it stimulates, this region iscalled the neuromuscular junction. The tetanus toxin amplifies the chemical signals from the nerve to the muscles to tighten up in a continuous contractionor spasm. This results in either localized or generalized muscle spasm.The incubation period ranges from 3 to 21 days, usually about 8 days. Ingeneral the further the injury site is from the central nervous system, the longerthe incubation period. The shorter the incubation period, the higher the chanceof death. In neonatal tetanus, symptoms usually appear from 4 to 14 days afterbirth, averaging about 7 days. On the basis of clinical findings, three differentforms of tetanus have been described. Local tetanus is an uncommon form of t h e d i s e a s e , i n w h i c h p a t i e n t s h a v e p e r s i s t e n t c o n t r a c t i o n o f muscles in thesame anatomic area as the injury. These contractions may persist for man yweeks before graduall y subsiding. Local tetanus m a y p r e c e d e t h e o n s e t o f generalized tetanus but is generally milder. Only about 1% of cases are fatal.Tetanus can be prevented by vaccination with tetanus toxoid. A booster isneeded every 10 years after primary immunization.In the Philippines the incidence rate of tetanus is 12 out of 86, 241,627. Objectives 2