What are Chronic Wounds & How to Care for them?

1. Chronic wounds are something that has failed to progress through the healing phases or has shown no progress towards healing in 30 days. Here are some of the factors that affect chronic wounds: Pressure, trauma or lower extremity wounds Incorrect treatment Increased bacterial load Aberrant cells Excessive proteases According to the recent survey, it has been found that chronic wounds affect 5.7 million patients and cost an estimated $20 billion annually. To treat this problem, it is crucial to understand the normal healing process and engineer a physical and biochemical environment.

2. If you have a wound for more than eight weeks, and it is not showing any signs of healing, it can be a chronic wound. These wounds can be occurred due to poor blood circulation, diabetes, a weak immune system, and more! Treating these wounds is highly important. Some people with complex wounds find psychological support for treatment. However, before visiting a clinic, here are some steps to be taken for healing chronic wounds. At first, it is vital to clean and cover chronic wounds using wound dressings and bandages. If it hasn’t healed after a long time, chronic wound management and treatment such as vacuum-assisted closure or skin grafts can be used. The wound can be cleaned while changing the dressing using a saline (salt) solution. However, one should know about the advantages and disadvantages of the various solutions used to clean wounds. Also, tap water can be used for the medical cleaning of chronic wounds.

3. When it comes to treating wounds, doctors remove dead or inflamed tissues. This process is known as debridement and can be performed using instruments like tweezers, curette, or a scalpel. An enzyme-based gel can also be used to clean the wound. After cleaning the wounds, it should be covered with a dressing. Some wounds are kept moist and require various types of dressings, including films, gauze, hydrogel dressings, form dressings, dressing contains silver, and hydrocolloid dressings. If wounds are infected with bacteria, antibiotics should be considered. They can be either applied as an ointment or placed on the wound using a compress. If there is poor blood circulation, compression stockings or bandages can be helpful to heal faster. The pressure from bandages or stockings helps the veins to carry blood back to the heart, hence it improves blood circulation. What’s more? There is several chronic wound care treatment that can be used to heal chronic wounds faster. Take expert advice for the best results.