How to measure a wound

Specialties Wound

Published

I attached a drawing I made below to help clarify in case my writing is confusing ?

Let's say there is a wound on the front of the patient's left thigh angled diagonally. Do I measure the length across diagonally or do I find the longest length while keeping the ruler oriented in the 6 to 12 direction? Also, for width do I go perpendicular to my length or do I orient the ruler horizontally (9 to 3 o'clock) and find the widest width?

Hopefully I'm not making this too confusing. I know this should be simple, but I'm not 100% sure which method to do.

Thanks!

WoundMeasurement.jpg
Specializes in Wound Care.

Hi!

Does your company have a policy? Where I work, length is always the longest point from 12-6, and width is the widest points while keeping the ruler straight from 9-3. We never measure diagonolly. Hope this helps.

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