Chronic, non-healing wounds are a worldwide health issue right now. Talking about the United States alone, more than 8 million Americans are suffering from various types of chronic wounds while the cost of healing these wounds is between $18.1 and $96.8 billion per year for the national health care system. But what are those?
A chronic or non-healing wound is an open, deep wound that doesn’t heal properly within months and can cause serious complications such as infection or amputation if left untreated. They can be extremely painful for the patients and hereby these wounds require advanced medical care & attention by wound care experts.
Our human body can heal minor wounds such as cuts, scrapes or punctures, etc. But when a wound takes a longer time to heal with traditional medical approaches or becomes infected, it is a sign of a chronic wound. Common chronic wounds include diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, pressure ulcers, and many more. Diabetes, old age, and obesity are some of the factors that increase the risk of the development of non-healing ulcers. Therefore, advanced medical care is required.
Incorporating Advanced Wound Care Technologies
If a patient’s chronic ulcers refuse to heal within 6 weeks, doctors must reconsider the treatment plan and determine all the factors which are contributing to the slow healing of wounds. Some of these complications may include the presence of biofilm or infection or any other underlying medical conditions. Once an appropriate treatment plan is prepared, various advanced wound care technologies can be incorporated that support better healing.
Below are the advanced wound care products. Take a look:
1. Cellular and Tissue-based Therapies (CTPs)
Cellular and tissue-based products provide significant wound care at bedside over autologous skin grafts to accelerate the wound healing rate for patients suffering from diabetic ulcers, venous ulcers, and pressure ulcers.
On one hand, where autologous skin grafts are painful procedures that may cause significant scarring at the donor site. CTPs are a less painful procedure that reduces healing times and provides effective & long-lasting coverage for the wound. This type of therapy may use the following cells to treat complex wounds:
- Stem cells including marrow stem cells
- Skin substitutes
- Tissue-based therapies, including autologous blood derivatives for wound care
Bioengineered Skin Or Dermal Substitutes
Over the decades, scientists have developed various bioengineered and synthetic products as a replacement for skin grafts such as autologous keratinocyte grafts, culture allogeneic keratinocyte grafts, etc.
Antimicrobial Dressings
Various suitable dressings have been introduced to help wound care doctors heal complex wounds effectively as well as to protect them from infection. The latest wound care technologies in dressings include the use of antimicrobial dressing.
These types of dressings include antimicrobial agents such as silver, polyhydrated ionogens, polyhexamethylene biguanide, honey, povidone-iodine, and chlorhexidine gluconate. It helps reduce the risk of infection in partial and full-thickness wounds by covering wound bed bioburden. These antimicrobial dressings are available as sponges, film dressings, absorptive products, island dressings, etc. It contains a bacteria-killing polymer that fights bacteria intervention within the dressing.
Human Fibroblast-Derived Dermal Substitutes
Wound care treatment California uses this type of latest technology to treat non-healing diabetic foot ulcers that haven't healed over 6 weeks. These dermal substitutes are made of human fibroblast cells taken from newborn foreskin tissue. Although there is a debate on using them for treating ulcers with signs of clinical infection or sinus tracts.
Negative Pressure Wound Therapy
Negative pressure wound therapy or Wound VAC is a treatment procedure of sucking out all the fluids from the wound to help it heal. Doctors may recommend NPWT if a patient has severe burns, pressure ulcers, diabetic ulcers, or any other chronic, non-healing wounds. During the procedure, a special dressing is placed over the wound with an attached vacuum pump.
The vacuum pump pulls fluid and infection from the wound and helps the wound heal by bringing the edges of the wounds together and growing healthy tissues. However, healing of the wounds depends on several factors such as the size & location of wounds, etc.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a type of treatment that is used to treat non-healing wounds by providing enough oxygen. During the treatment, the patient is laid down in a special chamber to breathe in pure oxygen in air pressure levels 1.5 to 3 times higher than average. It helps enough flow of oxygen to the wound that leads to tissue repair and speeds up the healing process.
Electrical Stimulation
It is a type of physical therapy modality where healthcare providers apply an electrical current to help strengthen muscles and boost blood circulation. If a patient is suffering from an injury that is causing mobility issues, doctors may use electrical stimulation.
Digital Imaging Technologies
Wound care is getting transformed day by day with various new technologies. EHR (Electronic Health Records) & Digital Imaging Technologies are one of them. Integrating digital imaging and EHR technology provides wound care specialists with a visual reference for a patient’s medical records and a timeline for the healing process.
Wound treatment for Pressure ulcers or other chronic wounds requires accurate evaluation and tracking of the wound status from the beginning. Here, using digital imaging helps reduce errors in the identification, assessment, and treatment of pressure ulcers.
Combined use of these technologies in the hospitals & wound care centers helps clinicians & patients to recognize the complexities of the wounds & minimize them as well as eliminates the guesswork of the process and replaces the manually measuring wounds and recording data with electronic wound documentation.
Thermal Imaging
Thermal Imaging has been an effective wound treatment technology in determining the requirement of additional treatment for a wound by recognizing early symptoms for chronic wound care. According to a study, this technology uses textural analysis of thermal images of venous leg ulcers to estimate the healing abilities as early as the second week evaluated by doctors at home. The significance of this work is that now there is a technology that can detect wounds that are not healing by two weeks.
Fluorescence Imaging
Another technology that has significantly transformed chronic wound care is this advanced technology that uses fluorescence imaging to identify the presence of bacteria. It ultimately reduces the use of antibiotics and antimicrobial dressing also as well as improves wound healing rate.
Individuals with chronic wounds experience various complexities including severe pain, infections, hospitalization, reduced quality of life, depression, etc. Here, the integration of Fluorescence Imaging technology helps in identifying the areas of ischemia and infection.
Telehealth Services
Telehealth Services play a vital role in bringing to the patients’ homes residing in remote areas of a locality. Wound care clinicians can conduct a video chat with the patient or patient’s caregiver and provide treatment recommendations.
With the use of a HIPAA-compliant two-way communication system and a specialized close-up camera, the clinicians can now access the wound conditions in detail along with their severity. This technology is extremely beneficial for senior citizens who are frail & immobile to a large extent to visit the hospital due to age, underlying health conditions, or condition wounds.
Bioactive Dressings
Bioactive Dressings contain active substances that promote effective wound healing for patients with chronic wounds by delivering bioactive compounds or materials having endogenous activity. These materials include Alginates, Antimicrobials, Cell-containing matrices, Cell-free matrices, Chitosan, Collagen, Elastin, Growth factors, Hyaluronic acid,
Silicone, Skin equivalents, etc. The growing market for bioactive wound dressing is bright and we will see an increase in various biomaterials being used in dressings globally.
Pressure Mapping
Pressure Mapping has been traditionally used by healthcare professionals to determine & redistribute skin-damaging pressure for preventing pressure ulcers. The technology provides a 3D image of the pressures a patient might have while lying down, sitting, or standing on a pressure-sensitive mat. It provides wound care doctors with numbers, colors, and graphical images in several views and options.
Red or orange areas of coloration will demonstrate an area of high pressure, while the shades of blue or green may indicate areas of low pressure. It is important to understand the particular pressure mapping device being used to correctly interpret results.
Shockwave Therapy
This technology uses biphasic, high-energy acoustic shockwaves to promote the wound healing process. Chronic wounds don’t heal within months and require advanced treatment. This shockwave therapy meets all the requirements for ideal non-invasive scar treatment. It is safe & tolerable for the patients as well as cost-effective, and easy to apply with low complication rates. It focuses on inducing tissue generation and matrix remodeling using mechanotransduction. The technology has been used by doctors to accelerate tissue repair and regeneration in a wide range of wounds.
Topical Oxygen Therapy
It is a low-pressure oxygen therapy that uses oxygen directly to the wound site at 1.03 atmospheres of pressure. It is completely safe, effective, and non-invasive wound therapy to treat open wounds in any setting. A wide range of wound types can benefit from using this technology as an additional treatment option. Alternatives to topical oxygen therapy are systemic oxygen therapy including hyperbaric oxygen therapy and inspired oxygen therapy.
These are some of the most popular & advanced wound care techniques to help treat non-healing wounds effectively. Chronic wounds are a major concern for wound care experts as they can hurt a patient's life. Incorporating these wound care technologies can help them optimize these conditions.
