Understanding chronic wound healing

Understanding Chronic Wound Healing goes here] [Your goes here] [Your college Article Summary This article is mainly about chronic wound healing and wound management. The aim of the authors is to provide an understanding of chronic wound healing to nursing professionals so that they can use the knowledge to manage chronic wounds effectively. Some of the main areas around which the discussion revolves in the article include the types of wounds, wound healing process, factors and issues related to impaired wound healing, importance of restoring cellular structures, and recommendations to practitioners for effective chronic wounds management. Chronic wounds are generally known as non-healing wounds or complex wounds because they are not easy to be treated using normal healing process. The reason is that of the changes that usually occur within the molecular environment of such wounds that do not leave the body in a state in which healing process can take effect immediately. For example, low level growth factors and high level inflammatory cytokines are such states that give rise to septic infections while affecting the overall healing process (Broderick, 2009, p. 17). Chronic wounds differ from acute wounds in that chronic wounds do not move through the predictable healing stages, whereas acute wounds can be cured at a predictable rate whether they are traumatic or surgical. Wound healing is a critical job for nursing professionals and it needs a great depth of understanding of nature of skin and pathology of diseases. Nursing professionals/practitioners need to understand the pathology of diseases and the process of wound healing completely in order to know which treatment would be the most suitable one for any particular wound and what might be the reason behind wound stalling. In case of acute wound healing process, the three main stages of treatment include inflammatory stage, proliferative stage, and remodeling stage (Broderick, 2009, p. 18). On the other hand, for the pathologic process of chronic wound healing, the main phases may include prolonged inflammatory phase, alteration of cell’s proliferation ability, deficiency in receptor sites related to growth, no initial bleeding for triggering cascade, and increase in proteases (Broderick, 2009, p. 20). As far as nursing and medical management of chronic wounds is concerned, nursing professionals need to know the factors that may affect the process of healing, as well as the ways to avoid impaired healing. Some of the main factors that lead to stalling of wounds include aging, autoimmune diseases, and poor inflammatory response. However, the main key to successful wound healing is proper diet because it brings an end to the risk of decreased collagen production, decreased wound healing protein, impaired angiogenesis, and impaired production of fibroblast. Moreover, use of stressors needs to be reduced because stressors impair the process of wound healing. Similarly, the quantity of bioburden bacteria should also be reduced because higher quantity of bioburden slows down the process of healing (Broderick, 2009, p. 20). Along with the need of effective nursing and medical management of chronic wounds, the application of information to professional nursing practice also hold a key place in successful chronic disease management. The practitioners need to review the medical records of patients in order to know their chronic disease history, as well as to find out the deviations in patients’ disease history and physical exams. Some other reviews that nursing professionals need to do during chronic disease treatment include assessment of current medications and previous tried treatments, nutritional assessment to know body mass index and other important measurements, vascular assessment to know the signs of venous insufficiency, wound assessment to know the cause of wound and nature of skin, and evaluation of the level of pain. Based on the above-mentioned reviews, nursing professionals should select the type of wound dressing. The information retrieved from the assessments also helps practitioners know whether they should use antibiotics for healing of any particular wound or not. Wounds normally heal within the period of 2 to 4 weeks. If a wound takes more time than this, then the patient should be referred to the wound-care clinic as soon as possible in order to prevent new injuries to tissues (Broderick, 2009, p. 22). References Broderick, N. (2009). Understanding Chronic Wound Healing. The Nurse Practitioner, 34(10), 17-22.