Nursing & Wound Care

Posted by nurse on August 5, 2011 under Critical Care, patient health | Be the First to Comment

Wound care requires the skill of a trained nurse for various reasons. Patients are rarely skilled enough to become full time nurses for themselves on their own. Wound care involves physical cleaning, ongoing assessment, pharmaceutical treatment, topical medication, and bandaging. The patient’s attitude toward treatment and their state of mind regarding ongoing care can massively impact the overall medical problem as a whole. Nurses skilled in wound care will find employment in every major clinic and hospital worldwide n any basis.

Nurses and therapists should be prepared for the physical requirements and emotional components of a wound care consultation. The environment should allow for spillage, drainage, wound changes and nonpermanent staining of bedding, pillows and cushions from treatment medications, drainage, blood and assorted fluids. Nurse should not get angry at patients for spilling treatment medication of topical wounds, or brushing bedding and cushions with wounds due to awkward positioning or strained circumstances.

The physical cleaning of a wound may require the patient be moved and the limb or area of the body affected revolved and angled differently for adequate treatment. Patients of various age, weight, and flexibility may have movement limitations that require additional time and patience on the part of the nurse or physician assistant to clean, unwrap, treat, and rewrap with bandages. Nurse need to be patient and slowly advise patients to stand up, turn, adjust their elbow, arm, leg or ankle to unwrap and wrap bandages, for example.

Wound care should take place in a sterile environment. Sheets and pillows should be clean and free from patient-to-patient contamination. Stained sheets should be put in burn bags or disposed of as soon as possible. Disinfecting sprays should be used all around the treatment area and a suitable amount of time allowed to elapse before subsequent patient consultation in the same area. When time is short between scheduled patient consultations, a revolving theater of beds should be used allowing germination extinction and bacterial clearance between patient habitation.

Nurses will become so used to the wound care consultation routine they may forget that patients are waiting for prompts about what to do and hints as to what is going on. It may be boring nd repetitive for nurses to verbalize, but patients need to be groomed in the medial visit what to to expect and need to be told what to do. Nurses should indicate to a colleague or via notations regarding the improvement, stasis, or alteration of the wound.

A patient may forget, due to pain, time elapsed, and other issues about what to do in the procedure. This is not a sign of inattention. But nurses may presume patients are not “tuned in” because they don’t remember every step of their consultation procedure. The overall consultation has a meaning for every part and individual the patient interacts with. Each staffer can independently determine if the patient is clearheaded, attentive to questions, honest in nature, evasive, hiding other symptoms, or trying to avoid discussing alcohol, smoking and drug abuse.

Taking vitals, weighing in, taking patient history, and updating medication and general condition information should be a a part of every wound care treatment. Changes in weight, normal biological processes, appetite, overall health and substance abuse can alter effectiveness of oral medications and circulation. These factors can change the dynamics of a given course of wound care. Smoking can affect Vitamin C absorption, for example, halting necessary citric acid activity and immune system support. Patients must be reminded they must play their part in wound care processes.

No consultation should be contained within a time period that excludes open and honest communication and information exchange about conditions affecting the wound. physicians and nurses can often miss critical pieces of patient data because the visit was so rushed patients were distracted from mentioning something important.

Nurses should ask questions about the wound condition and get the patient to communicate about the degree of infection, localized pain, copiousness of drainage, and/or redness/swelling. Re-orienting patients to their wound concerns is an occupational charge that reminds the victims that their medical condition is serious and requires ongoing assessment and vigilance. Patients and their wounds will appreciate it.