Advanced wound care has come a long way from traditional wound care. Even though traditional products are still used due to cost-effectiveness and usability, advanced wound care has paved the way for innovation and a deeper understanding of the human body.
What Does Advanced Wound Care Mean?
The National Library of Medicine defines advanced wound care as interventions used when standard wound care has failed. There are three different types which are:
Wound Healing: Where the skin heals itself by forming new skin cells, growing new blood vessels and removing dead tissue.
Infection Prevention: Where infection is prevented from entering the wound by cleaning the wound, using sterile dressings and antibiotics where necessary.
Restoration: Where the tissue is rebuilding itself after damage by growing new blood vessels, depositing new collagen fibres, and releasing growth factors.
As you can see, it promotes healing in all of these different ways using innovative methods and progressive technology.
What is Considered Advanced Wound Care?
There are various wounds and conditions that require advanced wound care. Some examples include burns, amputations, venous statis, necrotising fasciitis, arterial wounds and more.
Pressure ulcers and diabetic ulcers typically require this due to decreased blood circulation and tissue damage which limit the healing process. These ulcers require specialised treatment to remove the damaged tissue and either treat or prevent infection.
Post-surgical wounds or wounds that require frequent dressings also typically require treatment from advanced wound care products. This may be due to infections, a weakened immune system or other medical conditions.
What are the Benefits?
Advanced wound care offers an abundance of benefits to patient comfort throughout the healthcare industry. Some of the main ones include:
Improve the Healing Process: These products are designed to help speed up the healing process and reduce inflammation and pain.
Reduce After Effects: These products help improve the healing process so much so the amount of scarring and swelling is reduced afterwards.
Better Quality of Life: By decreasing the amount of pain a patient suffers, their quality of life is ultimately improved including mobility.
Prevent Infection: As mentioned above, these products help prevent infection from developing and leading to further problems.
What Are the Advancements in Wound Care?
Over the years, the advancement in wound care has accelerated due to medical and technological development. Advanced wound care is one of the UK’s largest medical-technology growth sectors and has become a multi-disciplinary field.
Tackling the root causes of the injury as well as the healing process, there is a much more holistic approach to patient care. From digital imaging to innovations in dressings and sensors, this innovation is dedicated to targeting specific conditions to provide better solutions.
As a leading healthcare and medical convertor and with innovation embedded in our core, BDK supports new technologies to enhance patient care and empower healthcare organisations in their developments.
If you’d like to talk to us about new or future opportunities, please get in touch here.
BDK will be exhibiting from the 1st May to the 3rd May at the European Woundcare Management Association.
Please visit us on stand F24.
