A chronic wound is a lesion that does not heal in a specific time but shows delayed wound healing. A wound is considered a “chronic (non-healing) wound” when the process is not completed between 4 weeks to 3 months. The patient has tissue damage and for this reason, the wound can be painful.
Many factors could lead an acute wound to become a chronic wound, for example, diabetes with its complications (neuropathy and narrowing of the arteries), low blood flow, soft tissue infection, pressure injuries, repeated trauma, immune suppression disease, overuse of drugs (steroids).
Wound care treatment should not have focused only on wound treatment, The treatment should involve also the peri wound area. The peri wound area may seem unimportant, it matters to patients
Apinut Wongkietkachorn, MD published this interesting article about 2 clinical cases. The patient first was admitted with a wound at the perianal area and contact dermatitis caused by Transpore and Micropore. It was suggested that this could be due to irritation from the adhesive substance used in the tape, which was made of acrylate adhesive. The second patient had a mild skin maceration at the border of the wound caused by the wet-to-dry gauzes.
These patients were treated, solving the reason for contact dermatitis and the skin maceration. These examples show how even small details can make a significant difference in wound care, increasing the patient’s satisfaction. The peri-wound care is often neglected, a therapeutic algorithm that integrates major challenges in peri-wound care into wound healing strategies is proposed.
Authors: Apinut Wongkietkachorn, MD,* Palakorn Surakunprapha, MD,† Attapol Titapun, MD,‡ Nuttapone Wongkietkachorn, MD,§ and Supawich Wongkietkachorn, MD¶
Newspaper: Plast Reconstr Surg Glob Open. 2019 Mar; 7(3): e2134
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6467635/