Advanced Wound Care

Exudate management remains one of biggest challenges facing district nursing services. With an ever increasing case load of patients with exuding wounds, it is vital to select dressings that simply go beyond just ‘absorbing high levels of chronic wound fluid’. The selected dressings have to be the best and safest choice for patient comfort as well as the effective treatment of the wound, leading to enhancing the patient’s quality of life. This article reports on the results of 101 patient evaluations conducted in the community setting by district nursing teams in order to assess the suitability of KerraMax™ Care superabsorbent dressings.

Authors: MARIA A HUGHES, Tissue Viability Lead Specialist Nurse, Queen’s Nurse, Wirral Community NHS Foundation Trust and JUNE JONES Independent Nurse Consultant, Southport

Acute inflammation is the body’s immediate response to injury. Signals released by damaged tissue increase local fluid, nutrient and immune system cell levels, resulting in swelling, heat, redness and pain. Adequate preparation of the wound bed can help to reduce inflammation and optimise conditions for healing. The TIME framework – which incorporates control of Inflammation and Infection – should be applied as part of a patient-centred treatment pathway (Dowsett and Newton, 2005). Local and systemic factors that contribute to inflammation need to be identified and managed. This Made Easy explains how prolonged inflammation can impact on healing, how to identify inflammation in practice, and which patients are at risk. It also describes how PROMOGRAN™ Protease Modulating Matrix and PROMOGRAN PRISMA™ Wound Balancing Matrix (KCI™) work to reduce inflammation and support progression to healing.
Authors: JACQUI FLETCHER, Independent Nurse Consultant, UK and PAUL CHADWICK, Visiting Professor in Tissue Viability, Birmingham City University, UK