As we all know, sometimes things don’t go according to plan and wounds are no exception to this. Wound healing is dependant on many different factors. Some factors that might stop or slow down wound healing include: • Infection • Poor immunity • Poor nutritional status • Some health problems (also known as ‘co morbidities’) […]

There are three basic principles which underlie wound healing. 1. Identify and control as best as possible the underlying causes. 2. Support patient centered concerns 3. Optimize local wound care. The CAWC Best Practice Recommendations for wound care (wound bed prep, venous ulcer management, pressure ulcer management and diabetic ulcer management) extensively covers all three […]

In healthy individuals with no underlying factors an acute wound should heal within three weeks with remodeling occurring over the next year or so. If a wound does not follow the normal trajectory it may become stuck in one of the stages and the wound becomes chronic. Chronic wounds are thus defined as wounds, which […]

Research work on acute wounds in an animal model shows that wounds heal in four phases. It is believed that chronic wounds must also go through the same basic phases1. Some authors combine the first two phases. The phases of wound healing are: • Hemostasis • Inflammation • Proliferation or Granulation • Remodeling or Maturation […]

In any natural disaster the damaging forces must be identified and stopped before repair work can begin. So too in wound care the basic underlying causes and factors that affect healing must be identified and controlled as best we can before wound healing will begin. Following are some of the common underlying causes or factors, […]

Wound healing is a complex and dynamic process with the wound environment changing with the changing health status of the individual. The knowledge of the physiology of the normal wound healing trajectory through the phases of hemostasis, inflammation, granulation and maturation provides a framework for an understanding of the basic principles of wound healing. Through […]