Nutritional Categories & Wound Healing

As we mentioned last week, a number of key nutritional categories that are essential for both the prevention and management of chronic wounds. This week we will briefly review the major categories of nutrients, and describe their importance in wound care.1–4 Essential Nutritional Categories Water – Water is one of the most essential nutritional categories to…

Support Surfaces – Wrap-Up

Over the past few weeks, we have considered the use of support surfaces in redistributing pressure and preventing the build-up of excessive pressure in vulnerable areas. We have looked at the different methods used for this purpose, and at the effectiveness of different support surface systems. However, we have not considered until now the safety…

Support Surfaces – Product Selection

Despite their importance in patient care and their ubiquity in many chronic care settings, support services have neither performance standards nor functional criteria that can be tested against clinical outcomes.1 For this reason, selection of the appropriate support surface can be left to individual healthcare professionals and institutions on the basis of their own judgment…

Support Surfaces

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Welcome to the first article in a new series on support surfaces.  The use of support surfaces is a critical component of any wound care plan, essential to prevent and treat skin breakdown. What is a Support Surface? A support surface is a specialized device that redistributes pressure to achieve optimal management of tissue loads,…

Biological Debridement | Wound Debridement Techniques

Our final technique in this short series on wound debridement is biological debridement, a technique based on the use of maggots to remove necrotic tissue from a chronic wound. Biological Debridement History Historically, larvae have been used in wound management for centuries, notably in the Napoleonic Wars and then the American Civil War.1 The technique…

Surgical Debridement | Wound Debridement Techniques

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What is Surgical Debridement? Surgical debridement is similar to sharp debridement in that it relies on the use of forceps, scissors, or a scalpel to remove devitalized tissue, debris or other foreign materials from the wound bed.(1–3) However, unlike sharp debridement, surgical debridement is carried out in a sterile, operating-room environment in order to reduce…

Sharp Debridement | Wound Debridement Techniques

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Another week has passed, and this week we turn to sharp debridement in our brief series on the different techniques available for debriding wounds. What is Sharp Debridement? Sharp debridement refers to the use of forceps, scissors, or a scalpel to remove devitalized tissue, debris or other foreign materials from a wound bed.(1–3) After surgical…

Mechanical Debridement | Wound Debridement Techniques

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Continuing our review of techniques used for wound debridement, this week we take a brief look at mechanical debridement. What is Mechanical Debridement? As its name suggests, mechanical debridement requires the use of a certain amount of force to remove devitalized tissue, as well as debris and other foreign material, from a wound bed. (1–3)…

Wound Debridement Techniques: Enzymatic Debridement

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Wound Debridement Techniques This week, in a continuation of our series on wound debridement techniques, we turn our attention to enzymatic debridement. Like autolytic debridement which we covered last week, enzymatic debridement relies on the use of enzymes to remove devitalized tissue.(1–3) However, in this case the enzymes are supplied externally (exogenously) rather than internally…