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The nature of medical care has advanced significantly in recent years, including wound care. Advanced wound care has been introduced to promote faster healing. It reduces infection risk, improves patient comfort, and minimizes scarring.
Advanced wound care is personalized for individual needs. Based on the wound, a strategy is built. It incorporates debridement, pressure relief, advanced dressing, using bioengineered skin, and applying oxygen therapies.
Strategies of Advanced Wound Care
A strategy is developed based on your wound condition. Generally, it includes the following techniques:
1. Removing Dead Tissue
When you get wounded, the surrounding tissues often die. These dead cells don’t grow anymore. Instead, it affects the healing process. You need to remove them for faster recovery.
To do so, advanced wound care follows debridement. This creates a more suitable environment for the affected wounds. Plus, it also reduces the risk of infection. Different types of debridement include the following:
- Autolytic debridement
- Biological debridement
- Enzymatic debridement
- Surgical debridement
- Mechanical debridement
Your doctor will first examine the wound thoroughly. The goal is to measure the severity of the wound. Pain medications are often used for mechanical debridement. Local or general anaesthesia is applied during surgical ty.
2. Advanced Wound Dressing
It’s crucial to dress the wound regularly. Instead of the traditional approach, advanced care includes foam dressings. It’s a soft, absorbent material used on wounds. It offers numerous benefits, such as:
- Moisturizes the wound: Keeping the wound moist quickens the healing process. The moist environment supports cell migration, proliferation, and tissue generation. Traditional dressings don’t offer such advantages.
- Reduces pain: Foam dressings are non-adherent. It does not get stuck to the wounded area. So, when you are changing the dressing, it does not hurt much.
- Reduces scarring: Wounded areas often get scarred. This often affects your appearance and also prevents you from moving on. Advanced dressing can prevent scarring from happening.
Foam dressing is suitable for many patients. However, they offer great value when used in the following wounds:
- Venous ulcers
- Arterial ulcers
- Diabetic foot ulcers
- Donor sites
- Traumatic sites
- Abrasions and lacerations
3. Pressure Relief
It’s important not to put pressure on the wounds. This can affect and harm the healing process. Give the wounded organ, whether hand or leg, a complete rest. This will quicken the healing process, and you will get back to normal life sooner.
Various tools can be used for this purpose. It primarily depends on what organ is injured. For example,
- Hand: Use padded gloves, hand orthosis, or soft pads. These wearing reduce the pressure on the hand.
- Leg: It’s important not to put your body weight if a leg is wounded. You can use pressure-relief booths, leg elevation cushions, or anti-pressure pads. In case of severe wounds, wheelchairs can be used.
- Neck: Use neck pillows, cervical collars, and pressure relief cushions.
4. Bioengineered Skin
It’s a lab-created material used to treat wounds. Bioengineered skin mimics natural skin and helps wounds heal faster. It is sometimes made from living cells, while sometimes it uses synthetic materials. This helps cover and protect damaged skin.
- Boosts natural skin regeneration and speeds up the recovery process.
- Provides a protective barrier against bacteria.
- Closely resembles real skin and improves integration and function.
- Reduces the risk of scarring
- Does not block the growth of natural cells.
5. Negative Pressure Wound Therapy
Bacteria tend to surround a wound. If it can infect, the healing process is prolonged. It increases your suffering time. Another common issue with wounds is the accumulated fluid.
Blood flow increases to an organ when it is wounded. The increased blood flow often causes inflammation, and fluid reaches in reaction to it. Negative pressure wound therapy uses suction to remove fluid and bacteria. Here is how it works:
- First, the wound is cleaned and dried properly.
- A special foam pad is placed on the wounded area. Then, a film is used to cover the area that allows fluid to pass.
- You can use tape to create an airtight seal around the wound.
- Place a suction tube on the top
- You need a canister connected to the suction tube to collect drainage.
- Finally, use a pump to apply negative pressure. You will find specially designed pumps for this job.
6. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy or HBOT
When we breathe, we don’t just take oxygen from the air. The air is mixed with other gasses. The most important one is oxygen, which also contributes to tissue functions. So, an increased amount of oxygen can boost tissue growth.
HBOT is about breathing 100% pure oxygen. For this therapy, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber is needed. The chamber has 2 to 3 times higher air pressure than normal. It lets your lungs receive more oxygen.
The increased amount of oxygen serves your body with many benefits. It fights bacteria, for example. Plus, extra amounts of oxygen can trigger the release of growth factors and stem cells. This quickens the healing process.
Conclusion
Advanced wound care strategies help you heal from wounds quickly. You can use different treatments from the above. An expert physician should decide what method you need. A well-applied advanced care will help you get back to normal life soon.
Disclosure: This is a collaborative post