Pressure Staging?

myrenie · Jun 8, 2004

Try -----> http://www.medicaledu.com/staging.htm

I found a lot of useful information there when I was researching stages of wounds and wound care.

Best Regards,

:-)

myrenie · Jun 8, 2004

Forgot too mention, this website indicates maggot and larvae therapy. Just out of curiosity how many nurses have practiced this? Personal experiance with this form of therapy would be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance!

CHATSDALE · Jun 8, 2004

I have never seen magot tx used howevr at an inservice one time this md said it was the most effective, least traumatic form of debridement he has used but that he never used anymore because of cost and because of lack of acceptance by pt and fly.....mostly lack of acceptance

Smiley RN · Jun 10, 2004

Hi! The book "Wound Care Made Incredibly Easy" is a good reference...:)

Here's a website with lots of resources for wound care, etc.

http://medi-smart.com/wound.htm :)

IamRN · Jun 10, 2004

Forgot too mention, this website indicates maggot and larvae therapy. Just out of curiosity how many nurses have practiced this? Personal experiance with this form of therapy would be appreciated.

I have heard w/maggot therapy, but have never seen it practiced. I have seen and performed leech therapy.

DG5 · Jun 11, 2004

I work in LTC. Two years ago we had an elderly resident with a chronic leg ulcer which wasn't healing with any of the therapies we tried, one after another. We eventually sent her to a Leg Ulcer clinic and the doc there prescribed maggot therapy. I have never seen a wound heal so quickly! We had never seen anything like this and were quite surprised to notice how tiny the maggots were - you could hardly see them, they were almost microscopic. The ulcer started improving almost right away. I don't know why its not used more often.

myrenie · Jun 29, 2004

I work in LTC. Two years ago we had an elderly resident with a chronic leg ulcer which wasn't healing with any of the therapies we tried, one after another. We eventually sent her to a Leg Ulcer clinic and the doc there prescribed maggot therapy. I have never seen a wound heal so quickly! We had never seen anything like this and were quite surprised to notice how tiny the maggots were - you could hardly see them, they were almost microscopic. The ulcer started improving almost right away. I don't know why its not used more often.

Thanks for replying, Just wondering now how doc writes an order for the use of maggots in a wound. Does doc indicate how many of the little critters he wants in the wound?, if so how do you keep track of them if they are microscopic?

I would be comfortable administering this sort of Tx, but it worries me that 1 may not get accounted for when providing this type of wound care.

:balloons:

DG5 · Jun 30, 2004

I'm sorry, I really don't know the answer to that This lady was sent off to the ulcer clinic where the RX and application was done. And I only saw it in the initial stage. The maggots are tiny to begin with but grow quite large in the end. It was therapy that was used as a last resort after months of trying to fix this ulcer up and the results of this was quite remarkable.

sheilab · Jul 11, 2004

in my experience the tissue vibility nurse orders them they come in their own little vial with instructions how to use them and the main thing is to keep them watered. they are excellent for cleaning sloughy wounds that are not healing and a patient may need only one or two treatments. the good thing is they only eat dead tissue so once all the slough is removed they have done their job.

nursing04 · Aug 18, 2004

Hello. I have a question for you wound care nurses out there. Today in clinical I had a patient who had an ulcer on the heel of her foot. The RN said you don't stage ulcers on the heel which I had never heard of. It was an open wound the skin was not in tact meaning that there was a small crater (about 1cm deep) the skin edges did not meet. No undermining, not going into muscle or bone, some drainage, yellow in color, no odor. To me this would be a stage III ulcer. But, she said you don't stage them on the heel. What do you all think??

gwenith, BSN, RN · Aug 18, 2004

I would love to know her reasoning. As far as I know the four stage classification system was written as a guide. I know we aim to intervene as soon (hopefully sooner) as we see a stage 1. I will agree though that sometime heels are difficult as I have seen some black necrotic areas I thought for sure would end up as stage 4 heal beautifully. These areas though were from a combination of high inotrope therapy, poor circulation and pressure.