The Role of Wound Dressings

Hello, my name is Gary Bane from The Wound Guy. If you have a dressing put on your wound, it's the tangible sign that a health professional has done something to try and treat that wound for you, but what is the role of wound dressings? The first thing that must be said is that all wounds have a cause and those wounds which are slow to heal have underlying reasons for this to be the case. If you feel that your wound is slow to improve or that it seems to get better only to reappear, Please see a health professional in order to ensure that a diagnosis is determined because this allows treatment to be designed for your situation and needs. The second thing to point out is that wounds heal when the skin, known as the integumentary system, interacts with and is sustained by the body's other systems. If your wound gets enough blood supply, nutrition, waste removal and immune support, then it is likely to get better. The process of repairing a wound is actually a holistic activity and a wound which is capable of healing itself will mostly do so irrespective of what type of dressing is placed on it. Dressing does progress efficiently if the wound's environment is moist and warm, close to body temperature. So it's not ideal if the wound's surface is too dry, too wet or too cold. Other things that can slow down healing is repetitive trauma from repeated knocks and scrapes or dressings getting stuck to the wound's surface. Addressing remnants, dead tissue within the wound, crusts and retained dews all combine to challenge the wound's ability to get better. Before you consider addressing, the wound and the surrounding skin needs to be well cleaned. Wound discharge and associated debris can be washed, irrigated or wiped away. In many community settings, water that is good enough to drink can be used to clean a wound. The water can be boiled and once it is comfortably warm to touch, then used for your wound. Your health professionals may have other wound cleaning solutions which can be used to support healing and to prevent or minimise infection, especially if you are as an individual frail or have multiple health issues. It's worth a quick chat with your health professional to see what solution they recommend for cleaning your wound. There are many dressings now available. Some dressing types have been around for decades, like gauze, petroleum chill dressings, coated pads and even the old band aid. Newer dressings these days have biological scaffolds, ingredients to stimulate tissue cells and they can apply therapies such as suction, electric currents and even deliver oxygen to the wound from room air. As we better understand the biology of wound healing, so it is that technology is increasingly providing us with more options and pathways for treatment. So with the vast array of products available to us now and into the future, it can become rather overwhelming figuring out what to choose to put on a wound. Perhaps the best way to think about all this is to revisit your wound. What does it require? Do you need to hydrate or rehydrate a dry base? Do you need to soak up fluid from a constantly oozing site to stop clothing and bed linen from always getting wet? How about dealing with smell, pain or bleeding? Is the wound base clean or does it present with a yellow cover? What is the skin like around the wound edges? Is it red, tender, soggy and white? The thing is, dressings are in fact tools. They are great at doing certain jobs for your wound at certain times. So they can help reduce pain. They can assist to eliminate a bad smell. can get rid of devitalised tissue within the wound base and so on. But as your wound repair journey proceeds, the type of dressing it needs should be determined by an assessment of what the wound and surrounding skin require. For instance, a heavily oozing wound, as it becomes cleaner, displays healing tissue within its base and has less discharge, will require a less absorbent dressing, and in fact it can give way to a dressing which gives you protection and a longer dwell time. To have three or four different types of dressings as a wound gets better is not that unusual. The key thing is that your wound needs to be measured, it can also be photographed and your dressings need to have a goal and purpose for their use. Regular measurements and photographs together can determine whether your dressing is doing its job, and you add to this other feedback from your observations about smell, pain, the level of exudate. Health professionals have access to lots of information about the technical aspects of dressings. Most of this information comes from the manufacturers of those dressings, but there is independent professional literature and websites at your health professional's disposal. So speak to your nurse, medical officer, pharmacist or podiatrist about what makes a good dressing for you. It's a team effort. Be guided by them. Involve them. Thank you for listening. Keep safe and well. Bye for now. you