Wounds are injuries that break the skin or other body tissues. They include cuts, scrapes, scratches, and punctured skin. The skin of the elderly may degenerate on its own and sometimes even without the presence of an injury. Elderly wound care is a significant and important part of the duties for nursing staff. Bedsores, ulcers and other types of wounds require lots of treatment and attention, which is a major responsibility for licensed nursing staff (Bock, M. (2003).
However, there are instances when improper elderly wound care can result in further health complications or even early death. There are a number of types of chronic wounds that may require to be treated in a nursing facility. The different types of wounds are lacerations, abrasions, contusions, and avulsions. There are a lot of factors that determines wound closure, the type of wound, size, the location of wound, how long-standing the wound is, condition of the patient, whether infection is present, and urgency of closure. Pressure ulcers often occur because of limited mobility and confining physical structures such as wheelchairs and bed rails. With elimination of pressure, a good blood supply, and adequate nutrition, the pressure ulcers will generally heal.
With our aging population, chronic diseases that compromise skin integrity such as diabetes, peripheral vascular disease (venous hypertension, arterial insufficiency) are becoming increasingly common. Skin breakdown with ulcer and chronic wound formation is a frequent consequence of these diseases. Types of ulcers include pressure ulcers, vascular ulcers (arterial and venous hypertension), and neuropathic ulcers. Valid and reliable pressure ulcer risk assessment tools are seriously underused. Evidence-based pressure ulcer prevention and treatment rules seem to be rarely implemented. This study provides a basis for developing educational and quality improvement programs and future research related to pressure ulcer prevention and treatment in LTCFs (Bock, M. (2003). Reports indicate 10% of hospitalized patients and 20% of nursing home patients suffer from pressure ulcers. The Healthy People 2020 objectives on older adults are designed to promote healthy outcomes for this population. Many factors affect the health, function, and quality of life of older adults. The nursing process consists of assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, implementing lastly, evaluating. In team nursing When a RN performs a wound assessment, he/she uses a systemic, dynamic way to collect and analyze data just as a regular assessment (King, B. 2014). The nurse would gather subject and objective data to identify what the problem is with the patient. I assessing the wound the RN will find out the cause of the wound, how long the wound have been present, patient history, what type of health care providers have been involved in the management of the wound, any previous history of wounds, and identify what environmental factors that may affect healing/cause of wound. The RN will identify the physical characteristics of the wound; he/she will always measure and document the actual readings which would be considered to be the objective data. While assessing the patient physical characteristics the nurse will note tissue types, drainage color, odor, and clarity. (Moore, Z. (2014). After gathering the complete, factual, and accurate data, the team leader will then begin to document all data collected about the patients wound health. The assessment information is then used to form a hypothesis about the wound, which is also known as the Nursing Diagnosis.
When researching I read several journals other than journals about wound care and the approach for nursing care was the same, just specialties were different. In wound care there are a lot of health professionals to help oversee and manage wounds. Although everything else in nursing care is very important I learned that communication is one of the most important techniques when providing care to clients. Learning that in geriatrics it is not always the care giver fault that a patient might encounter skin breakdown, and that it sometime occur because in older people their elasticity of their skin change and become more delicate.