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The Importance of Nurses Involvement in Wound Management

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All nurses involved in wound management need to understand the wound-healing process, as this should underpin their care plans. While treatment options will be influenced by the current stage of healing, it is important to note that the stages can vary in length of time and overlap, which can create difficulties in recognition.

For example, the signs and symptoms of wound infection could be confused with the inflammatory phase, while parts of the wound may be in the destructive phase, with other parts in the proliferative phase. Nevertheless, to recognise that the complex physiological process can be divided into distinct phases from the initial emergency response to injury through a process of repair and regeneration to complete healing helps the nurse in the clinical decision-making process.

We have used the idea of equating different stages in the wound-healing process to occupations as a teaching tool since 1996. More recently we have been working on a section to include in one of the local primary care groups’ wound resource file. While working on this document we felt this information would be useful for a wider audience.

The emergency response Wound healing can be defined as the physiology by which the body replaces and restores function to damaged tissues (Tortora and Grabowski, 1996). The emergency response to a burning building by the fire brigade and the other professionals involved in restoring it to full occupancy can be used as an

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