Wound Types

Wounds often cause pain, and untreated may may lead to decreased adherence with wound care. For this reason, it is important to assess patients for the presence of pain and ask what the patient is doing to relieve pain. If pain is inadequately treated, the wound care clinician should intervene to relieve pain to the…

Evidence-based Wound Management As clinicians, we know that patients do not always act in their own best interest. They may cling to old remedies based on tradition or folklore, rather than researching current and accepted treatments. An example of this is applying butter to burn wounds. As practitioners we know that this is not an…

In addition to local factors that can influence wound healing, such as circulation, sensation and mechanical stress, there are a number of systemic factors that can also play a role. Aging– aging causes many changes that adversely affect the skin and its ability to heal and regenerate itself. In terms of ability to heal, as we…

There are several local factors that can affect wound healing. Circulation, sensation and mechanical stress are among the most common local factors that have a bearing on healing. Circulation Palpable pulses do not always indicate sufficient circulation. They indicate that the major vessels have good flow, but they do not indicate that the microcirculation is…

We’ve already discussed problems with wound healing that occur during the inflammatory and proliferative phases of wound healing.  Next we’ll take a look at what can go wrong during the maturation and remodeling stage of wound healing. Hypertrophic Scarring Hypertrophic scarring occurs when there is an overproduction of immature collagen during the maturation phase of…

The wound microenvironment is populated with a variety of cells and chemicals that assist in wound healing. Understanding what these substances do and how they contribute to healing is important to gaining an advanced understanding of wound healing and management. Let’s look at these cells and chemicals in greater detail. Cells – Wound Microenvironment Cells…

There are three types of wound closure: primary, secondary and delayed primary closure. Let’s look at each of them in a little more detail. Primary wound closure Primary closure (sometimes referred to as healing by primary intention) is the fastest type of wound closure. A good example of primary closure is a paper cut. You…

As you might remember from part 1 of this series, there are three phases of wound healing. Last week we discussed the inflammatory phase, which lasts for a few days following injury. Now let’s look at the next two phases: the proliferative and maturation/remodeling phases. Proliferative Phase The proliferation phase generally starts within 48 hours…