COMPLEX WOUND MANAGEMENT IN ADELAIDE
Complex Wound Management in Adelaide by Friendly & Graceful Care Services: Learning about the basic concepts in assessing and managing a complex wound will help evaluate the patients.
What is a complex wound?
A complex wound is any acute or chronic wound in the body that can be observed in human skin tissues, which damages the skin’s different layers, namely, epidermal, dermal, and subcutaneous. How these complex wounds heal depends on their classification - acute or chronic.
An acute wound is a surgical injury that can heal through normal healing processes such as primary or secondary intention. Examples of acute wounds are surgical and traumatic wounds and burns.
Meanwhile, a chronic wound is any surgical wound that has a delayed healing process and fails to respond quickly to conventional treatment, including wound dressing or closure, because of local and systemic factors, such as medications, poor nutrition, other underlying diseases, or improper wound dressing.
While chronic wound has been the new term to describe complex wound, it must exhibit various features, such as lasting for more than three months, presence of necrosis or death of body tissue, infection, and other comorbidities that influence its healing time and potential, to be described as a complex wound.
How to conduct complex wound management in Adelaide?
Local and systemic factors influence the healing of complex wounds. The wound depth, infection, excessive moisture and necrosis or vascular disease in the periphery, radiotherapy, and constant pressure can be characterised as local factors affecting complex wound healing. In contrast, the systemic factors refer to the underlying disorders such as diabetes, weak immune system, and malnutrition.
There are three types of healing: primary intention, delayed primary intention, and secondary intention. The primary intention involves using sutures, staples, tapes, or tissue glue to repair the skin by holding the wound's edges together. Delayed primary intention involves intensive cleaning before closing the wound, usually seen in traumatic or infected surgical injuries. Lastly, the secondary intention concerns forming new connective tissue and microscopic blood vessels, shrinking tissue, and covering the exposed epithelial tissue.
Factors affecting the healing of complex wounds in Adelaide
To determine the appropriate approach to treating wounds, identifying the wound and the factors influencing its healing process must be done first. Common errors in complex wound management are rooted in the improper selection of wound dressing due to failure to determine the cause of the wound, the type of affected tissue, and the aim of the treatment.
It is crucial to practice complex wound management to ensure that the patients are comfortable and receiving the proper treatment. Generally, there are five principles of wound management, and these include:
- Wound assessment
- Hand hygiene
- Wound cleansing
- Timely changing of the wound dressing
- Proper choice of a wound dressing; and
- Prescribing appropriate medications.
Assessing the complex wound is the first step before proceeding with the actual complex wound management. Should you be interested in having someone who can evaluate your complex wound, effectively treat it, and guide you throughout your recovery, don’t hesitate to contact one of the support service providers in Australia.
NDIS coverage and benefits
The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funds various support services, including Complex Wound Management in Adelaide. If eligible for the NDIS funds, you may enjoy the perks of receiving assistance from staff trained following the NDIS Practice Standards to ensure high-quality service in the comfort of your homes.
If you are an existing participant of the NDIS and want to know more about incorporating Complex Wound Management services into your care plan, you may contact us.
What FGCS can do for you?
Here at FGCS, we can help you by having our trained professionals manage your complex wound in the most careful way possible. We guarantee that our team can address your care support needs and provide you with the relevant and appropriate treatment. All staff of FGCS are more than willing to guide you in every step of your recovery.
Contact us for more information on Complex Wound Management in Adelaide and other services we can offer.