Complex wounds are difficult to heal and pose a significant challenge for health care facilities. They make the treatment difficult and cause frustration, discomfort & pain not only in patients but the caregivers also. In this blog, we are explaining what Complex wounds are, their risk factors, symptoms, and treatment.
What are Complex Wounds?
Complex wounds can be described as acute or chronic wounds that don’t heal with the conventional treatment within a standard period and causes severe damage to both the epidermal, and dermal layers of the skin along with underlying tissues.
For example, when a body suffers any injury, the first step towards treatment is cleaning the wound and applying a suitable bandage to protect it from any infection. Within a few weeks, the skin heals itself. However, there are certain situations where the wounds have difficulty in healing promptly. These heard-to-heal wounds are known as “Complex Wounds”.
A complex wound may present any of these following factors:
- An open sore or injury which is slowly healing and not responding to the traditional treatment.
- The presence of an infection
- Sores on the lower legs
- Associated with chronic medical conditions
- Compromised blood flow to the affected area with tissue necrosis
- An ulcer that exposes muscle or bone etc.
If a person is having any of these conditions, he/she should immediately contact Wound Care in Orange County to discuss the treatment and preventive measures. Though every complex wound is not necessary to be a chronic wound in duration, if left untreated, it can result in serious deformity and disability. Various healthcare providers face clinical difficulties in providing suitable care for patients suffering from complex wounds, these injuries can bring financial stress for them.
Types of Complex Wounds
There are different types of complex wounds depending on their duration and symptoms. Here they are as follows:
- Pressure wounds due to the prolonged pressure on a part of the body, eg. surgery or limb fracture, etc.
- Venous insufficiency ulcers, and arterial wounds from peripheral blood vessel diseases
- Infected wounds
- Moisture-associated wounds
- Diabetic foot ulcers due to poorly controlled diabetes
- Complicated surgical wounds
- Wounds related to vasculitis and immunosuppressive therapy that prevents healing with traditional treatment etc.
Risk Factors For Complex Wounds
The major factors that contribute towards the development of complex wounds include the following:
- Severe tissue injury/massive skin loss
- Wound infection
- Presence of comorbidities and other wound-related conditions
- Longer wound healing period
- Disrupted blood flow
- Poor health
- Medical side effects
If any patient is having any of these risk factors that can increase the chances of developing complex wounds, they should immediately book a bedside appointment with wound doctors in California. Let’s read about these contributory factors in detail.
Severe Tissue Injury/Massive Skin Loss
When a large area of the skin and subcutaneous tissue gets damaged, the wound becomes difficult to treat and requires a significant amount of time to heal through the several phases of wound healing. The small wounds can be treated easily by doctors but if a large area of the skin is damaged, it becomes complex to treat. Therefore, the more extensive & larger the damage suffered by the patient, the more chances there are for developing wounds into complex wounds.
Wound Infection
The presence of infection in the wound site is one of the common challenges in overall wound healing and the development of complex wounds. Therefore, in case the wound is infected, it must be treated immediately to further prevent severe damage. Only when the infection is removed, the skin will be able to regenerate. Bacterial and fungal infection within wound sites results in the breakdown of healing tissues, delayed granulation, and wound closure. It slows the healing process and creates a barrier to tissue closure. Thereby, if a patient sees any symptoms of infection, they must call wound care specialists in Los Angeles.
Presence Of Comorbidities And Other Wound-Related Conditions
Many chronic medical conditions as well as their treatment modalities lead to the development of complex wounds in the patients. For example, peripheral vascular disease, immunosuppression or acquired immunodeficiency, diabetes, medications or radiotherapy, etc. All these comorbidities and chronic conditions increase the risks of complex wounds. So, if the patient is suffering from any of these conditions, they should disclose the same to wound care Los Angeles. Plus, other wound-related conditions such as Osteomyelitis, peri-wound dermatitis, etc. negatively affect the wound repair process.
Longer Wound Healing Period
Wounds that last more than three months in duration are generally described as complex wounds. This is because of the high possibilities of pathological transformation from any type of physical trauma or infected wounds.
Disrupted Blood Flow
Proper blood circulation is extremely necessary to accelerate wound healing. The blood carries sufficient nutrients to the affected site and helps with healing. The inefficient blood supply delays the overall healing process. Thereby if any patient has decreased or limited mobility, they are at higher risks of developing chronic wounds.
Poor Health
If a patient has poor nutritional support and has other medical conditions such as diabetes or peripheral arterial disease, they are more prone to develop complex wounds. Patients with other medical conditions have decreased capacity to heal the wounds as compared to those patients without these conditions. Similarly, the patients who smoke, or drink excessively, or are overweight suffer from delayed wound healing.
Medical Side Effects
If a patient is on certain medications such as corticosteroids and immunosuppressants, they can have delayed wound healing. These certain medications slow the wound healing process and decrease the skin’s ability to fight against infection while regenerating.
Diagnosis of Complex Wounds
The diagnosis of complex wounds requires a few sets of processes including:
- Documenting the patient’s comprehensive medical history.
- In-depth clinical examination of wound/periwound lesions
- Various laboratory tests using blood samples wound swabs, and biopsy samples
- Radiological diagnostic techniques (CT, MRI, Wound Ultrasonography, etc.)
Treatment Options for Complex Wounds
Though the treatment approaches used in treating complex wounds differ between the various categories, wound care professionals use the following steps in managing complex wounds. Here they are as follows:
- Debridement
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
- Surgical repair
- Negative pressure wound treatment
- Preventing infection with antibiotics, antifungal preparations
- Local wound care including wound cleansing, and dressing
- Treating comorbid medical states using medications or surgery etc.
- Dietary changes etc.
Complex wounds can be frustrating for both the health care providers and patients but the early identification of risk factors and suitable treatment plan can improve the chances of quicker wound healing.
