Nursing & Health Survival Guide: Wound Care

Kelly Ryan has been a Community nurse since 2005(BSc Hons, Degree Adult Nursing), dealing with various types of wound care on a daily basis, and has a keen interest in this area. In 2008 she completed the Mentoring and Assessment Module at Coventry University enabling her to mentor students in practice. She gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education in 2011 and plans to starts a Masters degree in the future. She has also co-authored the Nursing & Health Survival Guide on CPR, published in January 2012.

Contents

Introduction

What is a wound?

The role of the healthcare professional

Wound healing

Factors that influence wound healing

Physical, psychological and social impact

Wound assessment

Treatment plan

Dressing choice

Necrotic wound

Sloughy wound

Infected wound

Granulating wound

Epithelialisation

Overgranulation

Skin tears

Infection control/Handwashing

Aseptic technique

Patient: Case study

Record keeping

Pressure area care

What is a pressure ulcer?

Guidelines

Who is at risk

Pressure ulcer causes

Pressure ulcer Risk assessment tool

Preventative Careplan

Skin assessment

Pressure ulcer staging

Treatment options (grade1-4)

Moisture lesions vs Pressure ulcers

Cavilon-product application

Nutrition for pressure ulcer prevention

Patient repositioning

Why is repositioning so important?

‘At risk’ sites

Support surfaces

Incident reporting

Patient referral-Multi-disciplinary working

Residential homes

Image Sources

References

Useful Websites