Six ways to treat bedsores

  Decubitus ulcers are a common clinical condition, often occurring in the elderly and paraplegic groups. The six current treatment methods for decubitus ulcers are debridement, muscle repair, negative pressure drainage, skin flap grafting, skin traction suturing, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.  The first one: debridement. Decubitus ulcer wounds often have necrotic tissue attached to them, which not only contaminates the wound but also provides a “breeding ground” for germs to grow, so they must be removed. Debridement removes necrotic tissues such as black scabs, rotting flesh, pus and other less viable granulation tissues from the wound, transforming the contaminated wound into a clean wound.  The second type: muscle repair Decubitus ulcer wounds usually have tissue defects, and new flesh must be made to grow on the “wound” before it can be epithelialized and closed, so the most important point is muscle repair. Currently, topical ointments such as decubitus ointment and myogenic ointment are used to speed up wound repair by expelling decay and promoting myogenesis.  Many patients’ families choose this method of home care because the patient is not easy to move, but it should be noted that serious wounds and difficult traumas should be treated in a timely manner at a specialist hospital for wound repair, do not delay.  The third type: negative pressure drainage Negative pressure closed drainage is the use of negative pressure machine to generate negative pressure, through the drainage tube and dressings on the wound, the inflammatory exudate drainage, improve the environment of the wound, while stimulating the growth rate of granulation tissue. This method is also the more clinically used method at present, and can be combined with topical ointment care to speed up the speed of wound repair.  The fourth type: flap transplantation, also known as skin grafting, is used to fill tissue defects in bedsores by transplanting intact skin flaps from other parts of the body to the bedsore wound site, and this method is also commonly used in cases where the bedsore is about to heal but does not repair the mouth or grow skin for a long time.  For skin damage in the donor area, full protection should be provided to prevent ulceration of the wound, and the healing of the skin in the recipient area should be followed up to prevent internal necrotic cavities.  The fifth type: skin traction suture The traction band is fixed to the skin on both sides of the wound and traction is applied to make the skin on both sides contract toward the middle, thus achieving the purpose of forcing the wound to shrink. The difficulty of epithelial closure is also reduced accordingly after the wound shrinks, which can lead to gradual reduction of the wound or surgical suture treatment as a way to shorten the recovery cycle of the decubitus wound. This therapy should also pay attention to the patient’s skin tolerance as well as tissue skin repair ability, and in the case of better multifaceted, with other therapies such as topical creams and surgical sutures, significant benefits can be obtained.  The sixth type: hyperbaric oxygen therapy This therapy can correct the problem of insufficient oxygen supply to the trauma surface mainly by increasing oxygen diffusion to increase the trauma surface blood oxygen content, and it can also promote capillary proliferation and improve blood circulation, which can help patients recover their whole body functions.