Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Understanding The Importance Of Wound Irrigation

By Melissa Stewart


Sometimes when one gets Into a horrible accident, it can be very frightening. The experience can even become more unsettling when a wound develops. Serious injuries can result in the loss of limbs. Before that happens, wound irrigation may play a successful role when it comes to keeping someone from losing their life.

What child has not had the experience of playing in the water when the sprinklers were turned on. Though a child might believe that this summertime fun was tailor-made for them; it really was not. The greater purpose was to have a irrigation system that turned the grass green and kept it healthy.

Wound irrigation is similar in the fact that it uses a liquid to flush out debris or dead skin in an exposed area on the body. It helps in keep a wound hydrated which is of utmost importance to the healing process. It speeds it up and brings things back to normal. This can be compared to irrigating a yard because it produces something that is healthy.

When performing the method of irrigation, the pressure has to be high enough to remove any sort of debris or dead tissue, but gentle enough to not cause any more harm to the wound. It is often measured in pounds per square inch. This is known as psi. Scientific research has shown that using a psi between 5 and 15 psi provides enough pressure to remove debris. However, for a wound that is chronic in nature, use the lowest pressure that can achieve the same effect.

Ulcers look like open wounds and are a great demonstration of when it would be good to use medical irrigation. They resemble that of open sores that are infested with tissue that is dead. If one were to perform this medical irrigation, it would speed up the healing of the ulcer.

This popular method does have certain liquids that help the process. Water is a definite component of the procedure because it is regularly accessible. A fluid that has relatively few effects would be that of normal saline. It does not altar the healing process and the osmotic pressure is equal to that of the fluids of the body. Hydrogen peroxide is also a liquid of choice because it not only flushes out debris and dead skin, but it also kills germs and bacteria. Some believe that using this liquid may slow down the process of healing if too much is used.

Before the irrigation takes place, washing the hands is a must. Also make sure to read the doctor's orders. After doing so, it is important to identify the patient with two forms of I. D. Then one can assess the patient's condition and find out if they have any allergies. All equipment should be carefully laid out.

When it comes to cleaning the infected area, the tools usually are made up of syringe or tool similar to that in which a dentist would use when cleansing teeth. Now the size of the syringe depends upon how large the wound is. The streams used to flush the injury can be intermittent or continual. The time it takes to administer the flush depends again upon the size of the wound.




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