The Process and Factors of Wound Healing

Wound management is one of the cornerstones for nursing care however, effective wound care extends far beyond the application of the wound itself. Nurses may be required to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate wound care; therefore, order to fill these roles it’s critical to have an understanding of the several different areas of wound care such as, integumentary system, classification of wounds, wound procedures, and documentation. Knowledge in each of these areas will allow nurses to make well informed decisions about wound care, and as a result play an active part in wound healing.

As cited by Jarvis (2012, p.203), “the skin is the sentry that guards the body from environmental stresses and adapt it to other environmental influences.” Maintaining the elderly patient’s skin integrity requires a holistic care approach. As a nurse, one of our best practices is performing a thorough skin assessment of the whole body of our patients. A detailed head-to-toe skin assessment and clear documentation can help the interdisciplinary team in generating individualize plan of care. I perform a thorough assessment by inspecting the patient’s skin color, temperature, texture, moisture, and for presence of wounds. I ensure that the information I obtained from the skin inspection is clearly documented in the patient’s chart and plan of care, and any skin changes are communicated to the physician or nurse practitioner.

On assessment, the wound was slightly exudates, odour, sloughs and dry skin patches on the surroundings. Sprakes (2010) state that, holistic assessment of patient and the wound are essential in order to facilitate the wound healing process. Ousey and McIntosh (2010) points out that, chronic wounds are exacerbated by a sequence of misdiagnosis, neglect, incompetence or inappropriate treatment strategies. I observed that, M’s wound was with exudates and sloughs; this

The first couple of paragraphs include an explanation of what is considered a complex wound and the current available treatments. It is beneficial that the authors include an explanation of what the problem is so that the reader can have a better understanding of why this issue is of concern. The paragraphs then transition towards the types of treatments available for the problem and a description of why the current treatments are not sufficient for restorative care.

In light of how incredible our body is to be able to regenerate quickly for most, that is not what happens for others. Many diseases or large body wounds can take years to make it through one stage. Some may not ever heal. Wounds such as diabetic, venous stasis, ischemic, or pressure ulcers have a lack of blood flow making it almost impossible for them to heal naturally (Cutroneo, 2008). Large area burn victims also fall into this category. Their body is trying to compensate for fluid loss and maintain homeostasis, but wound healing ends up being very difficult to do on their own (Jacobsen, 2005). Many attempts are used to heal these including gene therapy, hydrotherapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and topical antibiotics to just name a few. There are many courses of therapy to heal these wounds, and some work better than others depending on the wound and person.

All nurses involved in wound management need to understand the wound-healing process, as this should underpin their care plans. While treatment options will be influenced by the current stage of healing, it is important to note that the stages can vary in length of time and overlap, which can create difficulties in recognition.

To test for wound healing, excision wounds were created on THE exposed mice. The wound tissues were collected at various time intervals for 14 days after the injury. Looking at RNA concentration and using a spectrophotometer, the changes of expression level between exposed and non-exposed wound tissue were compared.

There are three factors to keep in mind when coding wound repairs, the complexity, the location, and the size of the wound.

Pressure ulcers have four different types of stages in which stage one consists of skin with non-blanchable erythema. Stage two is the partial damage to skin loss including a blister. Stage three is the full thickness tissue loss whereas subcutaneous fat is sometimes visible and lastly, stage four consists of full thickness loss with bones, tendons, or muscles exposed. On the other hand, the normal process of wound healing also consists of four phases. The first phase of wound healing is the homeostasis (blood clotting), this is when in the first few minutes of many platelets in the blood starts sticking to the injury, second phase is the inflammation phase, in which the body response to the injury. Third stage is the proliferation which is the growth of new tissues. And lastly, the remodeling phase which is the final phase when the wound has closed. It’s the remodeling of the collagen, this phase can last for almost a year or

GHK peptide is a naturally occurring gene in the body that is present in plasma and saliva. It is bonded well with cooper giving it the name GHK-Cu. Unfortunately, this peptide declines with age. The plasma level is about 200 ng/mL at the age of 20, but declines to 80 ng/mL by age 60 (Pickart, 2015). This gene is an important asset to our bodies as it “accelerates wound healing and contraction, improves the take or transplanted skin, brings vitality to fibroblasts after radiation, and also possesses anti-inflammatory actions (Pickart, 2015).” It is proven heal diabetic and ischemic wounds because of its ability to increase blood vessel formation. Another therapeutic GHK-Cu is used for is to reduce inflammation in COPD patients (Pickart, 2015). It helps regenerate lung elasticity and remodel the collagen properties.

Caring for patients with wounds is commonly encountered in a nurse’s career in most health care settings, whether it is in neonatal, mental health, community, or aged care. In the past, wound dressings were created to absorb all exudate, believing that dry wounds will reduce the risk of infection. Within the last fifty years, the concept of moist wound therapy has become the most effective approach to wound care. Before treating any wound, it is important to discover the underlying cause and consider other possible factors that may impact on the healing process and deliver a systematic and rational approach towards wound care assessment. Nurses must have a basic understanding of

After skin injury complement cascade stimulates the migration of inflammatory cells by releasing vasoactive and chemotactic mediatiors. Macrophages plays a vital role in transition from inflammation to granulation phase by releasing cytokines. In fibroblastic phase fibroblast migrate into the wound and produce new structural framework by deposition of type І and type ІІІ collagen. In maturation phase stimulatory and angiogenetic factors decreases resulting in regression of hyperemia associated with early wound repair.

Wound healing is a complex and dynamic process, therefore, proper wound care is crucial in minimizing further infection and optimizing healing. Wound management is an integral part of nurses’ knowledge base. However, as advancements continue to be made, dressings have become very specific, varying for each type of wound. Having access to up-to-date resources is critical in helping provide proper and accurate care to patients.

One important aspect of nursing service is to safeguard and maintain the integrity of the patient's skin so-preserved and intact. Intervention in the patient's skin care will be one of the indicators of quality of nursing care provided. Damage to skin integrity can stem from injury due to trauma or surgery, but can also be caused due to the suppression of skin preformance long time which causes irritation and will develop into pressure sores or decubitus.

When a lawn mower cuts grass, weeks later it grows back to its original size. This is exactly what happens during regeneration in mammals. This article shows how some cells in the skin can be reprogrammed, like reprogramming the old computer, to form fat cells. This reprogramming process requires hair cells and some essential proteins. Usually when a wound heals, a scar forms and hair does not grow again. However, they observed wound healing in mice and found that fat cells grow around hair cells in the skin. To test the relation between fat cells and hair cells. They bought modified mice one has a scar with hair growing and the other has a hairless scar. They found fat cells in the skin that has hair whereas the hairless skin did not form fat cells, so they