Week 4 - Wound care products Flashcards
What are the factors impacting choice of product?
- Wound – location, size, type
- Manage exudate
- Promote debridement
- Manage infection
- Frequency of dressing change, ease/difficulty
- Cost
If a wound is hard, dry and black - what product would you select?
- Hydrogel
- Hydrate, separate eschar
If a wound is exuding yellow - what product would you select?
- Alginate
- Absorbs exudate, debridement
If a wound is moist red - what product would you select?
- Hydrocolloid
- Provide barrier and control humidity
If a wound is pink/red - what product would you select?
- Transparent film
- Allows epithelialisation, reduces shear
Making decisions - Red/pink wounds
- Vascular granulation tissue or epithelialisation
- Protect regenerating tissue
- gentle cleaning; protect peri-wound
- fill dead space (hydrogel or alginate)
- cover (hydrocolloid, transparent film, clear absorbent acrylic dressing)
- aim for infrequent dressing change
What products to use for granulating and epithelialising wound
- Hydrocolloids
- Soft silicone dressing
- Transparent films
What are the advantages of using hydrocolloid dressing?
- Waterproof which allows patients to shower
- Absorbs exudate
- Gel that forms from the wound fluid provides a moist wound environment
- Reduces pain
- The moist environment promotes the formation of new tissue
What are the disadvantages of using hydrocolloid dressing?
- Care should be taken when using hydrocolloids as they can encourage the growth of anaerobic bacteria
- Use with caution on fragile or compromised skin as the adhesive may cause trauma
- May be difficult to keep in place
- Sometimes have a distinctive malodour that is mistaken for pus
What are the advantages of using silicone dressings?
- Conforms to different anatomical shapes
- Atraumatic to wound and surrounding skin
- Absorbent of up to moderate exudate
- Can be used on infected wounds if appropriate antibiotic treatment provided
- Mepilex Border
- Allevyn Gentle Border
- Biatain Foam
What are the advantages of using transparent films?
- Good for low exudating, primary intention wounds
- Economical
- Primary dressing with an adhesive secondary dressing
- Island dressings
- Primapore
- Opsite
What products to use for overgranulation / hypergranulation tissues?
- We need to compress the tissue, products such as:
- Foams
- Impregnated gauze
Foams
- Low to heavily exuding wounds
- Granulating and epithelialising wounds
Impregnated gauze
- Traditional dressing
- Can be adherent
- New tissue trauma due to drying out and leaving indentations in the wound bed
- Pain
- Bleeding
- Contact dermatitis
Making decisions - Yellow wounds
- Slough - moist, devitalised, thick, stringy, adhered or purulent exudate.
- Remove non-viable tissue & manage exudate
- clean by swabbing or irrigating
- promote autolytic debridement; absorb exudate(alginate); may need to add moisture (hydrogel)- If colonisation of microorganisms and
biofilm consider topical antimicrobial
dressing Iodine, Silver)
What to do with a sloughy wound
- Remove non-viable tissue
- Rehydrate wound
- Absorb exudate
- Products to use:
- Alginate
- Impregnated
- Hydrogel
- Hydrofibres
What to do with an infected wound?
*Antimicrobial dressings
- Silver dressing
- Iodine dressing
* Odour absorbing dressings
- Charcoal
Making decisions - Black wounds
- Necrotic tissues or eschar tissue
- Require debridement (removal of dead tissue)
- rehydrate the wound bed (hydrogel, hydrocolloid) and body’s own enzymes break down tissue; autolytic debridement
What to do with a necrotic/eschar wound
Debride (remove dead tissue)
- rehydrate the wound bed & body’s own enzymes break
down tissue
- Manage odour
What is secondary dressing
- Used to secure primary dressing
- Used to protect and absorb exudate and odour
- Facilitates
- Secondar dressing includes:
- Non-stick dressing
- Absorbent pads
- Charcoal
- Bandages
- Tapes
What is an important critical thinking when doing wounds?
If the wound has non-viable tissue, debride it.
If the wound is dry, add moisture.
If the wound has drainage, absorb it.
Wound dressings should be changed as needed to meet the characteristics of the wound bed.
If a wound fails to respond, consider changing products to one with a different mechanism ofaction.
More than one dressing may be required on a wound, ie hydrogel, non-stick pad, combine pad and secured with tape or tubular bandage
What dressing absorb moisture?
- Alginate
- Hydrofibres
- Foams
- Absorbent pads
- natural fibre dry dressing
What dressing are neutral?
- Transparent films
- Non-adherent dry dressings
- Silicone dressing
What dressing add moisture?
- Hydrocolloids
- Hydrogels - wound fillers
- Tulle gras dressings
