Wound Management

Modern wound management is a challenging and rewarding area of clinical practice for the student nurse. This modern approach involves simple advances in practice. Firstly, modern wound management uses moist wound healing processes that have been researched and determined to be significantly more effective than the dry healing of the past. Secondly, and more importantly, it is a more holistic approach that looks at more than the wound itself, but addresses the whole patient in medical, environmental and social contexts Waldrop, Doughty, (2000).
Most sources indicate that wound healing is made up of an orderly sequence of events. This, in turn, is characterised by specific movement of specialised cells into the wound, carrying out specific tasks Bale, Harding, Leaper, (2000). According to the movement of the cells and the orderly sequence of events in healing is regulated by cytokines or growth factors.
The healing stage of photo 3 appears to be the Proliferative (or regeneration) stage. Evidenced by its colour - bright red, moist and shiny appearance. As a student nurse it would always be well off to remember that healing is a continuum of complex connected processes that are divided into phases. These phases are known as the inflammatory phase, the proliferative phase, the maturation phase.
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