The Principles Of Wound Care
Wounds can have detrimental effects on your general well-being. For instance, if you have a wound, you may be in constant pain that affects your performance at work or school or even your ability to carry out routine activities. Wounds can also have a cosmetic impact and affect your physical appearance and therefore lowering your confidence. Wound care is therefore essential to avoid these effects and to also ensure a quick recovery.
Some of the indicators that you require for wound care include extreme pain, fever, wound discharge, and foul odor from the wound. Discoloration of the wound, such as a blue color around the wound, is another indicator that you require wound care. Various wound care options are available, like skin grafts, wound debridement, treatment of infections, hyperbaric oxygen therapy in Fort Worth, and compression therapy. This article highlights the principles of wound care that help to avoid serious complications.
Analgesia
Analgesia refers to pain management. Once you get an injury, you can develop severe pain. The pain makes it hard to carry out other wound care measures, and therefore, it is essential to provide painkillers. Once you are pain-free, it becomes easy to clean and suture the wound. The most common form of analgesia is used in a local anesthetic, although you may sometimes combine it with a systemic analgesic.
Hemostasis
This step aims at stopping the bleeding from the site of the wound. This process occurs spontaneously in most wounds. However, if you have a severe injury or your blood vessels have injuries, the bleeding may be profuse, and therefore there is a need for active hemostasis. You can control the bleeding by applying pressure, elevating the area with injury, suturing, or using a tourniquet.
Cleaning the Wound
Wound cleaning helps to reduce infection and makes the process of healing faster. During wound healing, the processes that should be done include disinfection of the skin that surrounds the skin using an antiseptic. The next step then includes decontamination to remove any foreign materials from the wound. Debridement of the dead tissues should also be done at this point. If the ulcer does not have contamination, saline irrigation helps. High-risk injuries like bites, wounds with foreign bodies, and open fractures require fluid therapy.
Closure of the Wound
Once the wound is clean, it is essential to oppose the wound's edges to facilitate healing. There are different methods of closing wounds that include using adhesive strips and glue, and staples. The more commonly used way is placing sutures of the ulcer, especially if it is more than 5 cm and if it is a deep wound. Wounds that occur in areas that bear tension and flexion and are prone to getting wet also require sutures.
Wound Dressing
The final step of wound care is dressing the wound. When dressing the wound, the first layer of the dressing should be non-sticky such as gauze soaked in saline. The other layers can then be absorbent so that they can remove the exudate from the wound. You can secure the dressing with tape. It is essential to give tetanus prophylaxis after a wound if the vaccination is not up to date. After the wound care, it is vital to have follow-up by keeping the wound dry and removing dressings and sutures within 10-14 days.
In summary, wound care is essential to prevent various complications like infections and delays in healing. Wound care involves the use of analgesia, controlling the bleeding, and cleaning the wound. It is also vital to close the wound and dress it. Antibiotics and tetanus prophylaxis are used when necessary.
