Can I have Microsoft Word open while doing virus scans?

[✖Edward Kenway✖]

I need to finish up a project that I have for school and my Word documents are on my computer. Yesterday, at night my computer started to act suspiciously weird after I accidently clicked on a page while on Facebook. It might've been a virus, or my computer could've just been slow, as I had had it on since the morning. So, I was wondering if having Microsoft Word open would interfere with the virus scans?
I'm basically saying, if say there WAS a virus on my computer.
If having Word open could cause my anti-virus not to detect it, against having nothing open at all and my anti-virus detecting it.
@ Isabel
THANKS! Just what I was looking for! ^-^