Practice Innovations
Palliative wound care protocols focus on symptom management. Controlling wound odor, pain and exudate are key to improving quality of life in this patient population. Highly absorbent, long wearing dressings limit the frequency of dressing changes. Managing exudate prevents periwound maceration, controls odor, minimize infection, and decreases pain. Using materials that help to optimize the wound environment supports better patient outcomes.
Methods:
This is a prospective 3 patient case series on chronic wounds of various etiologies placed into a palliative care pathway. As part of standard of care, the innovative non-adherent superabsorbent dressing was applied to the wound/peri-wound. The dressing boasts a soft wound contact layer that ensures fast exudate transfer into the superabsorbent polymer core of the dressing. A silicone contact layer facilitates painless removal. The water-repellent outer layer of the dressing is permeable to air preventing strikethrough and allowing for protection of clothing and bedding. The dressing has a wear time of up to 7 days.
Results:
The use of this innovative superabsorbent dressing fit well into our existing palliative wound care protocols. The unique combination of loose cellulose and superabsorbent polymers produced a padding effect to provide added patient comfort. The dressing trapped fluid securely, even under compression. Malodor was well managed, and dressings were able to be left in place for 7 days. All patients tolerated bandage changes well without any complaints of pain or bandage adhesion. We saw no incidence of infection or periwound maceration in this cohort.
Discussion:
The principles of palliative wound care are becoming more important as our population ages. Managing wound symptoms with this advanced superabsorbent dressing helped to minimize the negative impact of living with chronic wounds and increase patient quality of life in these patient cases.
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