Personal Care Skills
What candidates must know
Personal care includes bathing, oral care, denture care, hair and nail care, shaving, dressing, toileting, perineal care, back massage, and skin inspection. These tasks are also the CNA's best chance to assess skin, so look for redness, breaks, bruising, and rashes every time you provide care and report what you find.
Provide privacy by closing doors and curtains, keep the resident warm with only the area being washed exposed, and encourage the resident to do as much as possible. Offer the bedpan or toilet at regular intervals and before meals and sleep.
Traps in questions
- Washing eyes from the outer corner inward. Clean from the inner corner outward, using a different part of the cloth for each eye.
- Cleaning the perineum back to front. Always go front to back, from the cleanest area to the dirtiest.
- Handling dentures over a hard sink. Line the sink with a towel or fill it with water; never use hot water, which warps dentures.
- Cutting the toenails of a resident with diabetes or poor circulation. Only a podiatrist or nurse does this.
- Skipping oral care for a resident who is NPO or has a feeding tube. Mouth care is still required.
- Forgetting to replace the foreskin after cleaning an uncircumcised male, which can cause swelling and injury.
Worked rule
For perineal care, wash from the pubic area toward the rectum with a fresh wipe for each stroke, using the front-to-back rule every time. This sequence prevents dragging bacteria from the rectum toward the urethra and is the rule most often tested.