Dressings & Wound Care

Dressing a wound is an essential element of wound care. The main purpose of doing this is to provide a protective layer even though temporary to the wound. It’s also done to absorb the wound drainage and provide the necessary moisture necessary for the healing of the wound.

Different types of products are used to care for different kinds of wounds. 

For cuts, the first thing to do is to stop the bleeding and you can do this by applying pressure on the wound once it stops you can proceed to clean the wound using Hydrogen peroxide or povidone-iodine products. You can then apply ointments like Bacitracin, and Neosporin and cover up the cut. 

For burns, you can go with water-based treatments, use burns ointments or creams like bacitracin or silver sulfadiazine. The burn can also be dressed using dry gauze. 

For bites, wash and ensure your hands are clean, then rinse the wound under running warm water for a few minutes. Allow the wound to bleed for a while and then dry the skin. Then proceed to cover the wound using a sterile bandage as a first-hand treatment

Heat treatment helps to improve the blood flow and nutrients movement to the wounded areas and it works best for stiffness or warming up muscles. 

Cold treatment slows down the blood flow and reduces the swelling and pain caused by the wound. It’s mostly used in cases of a sprain or a strain.

Plasters and bandages are common items used for wound care. There are three main types of medical players and they are:

• Fabric plasters: used to protect smaller wounds and mostly falls off when wet 

• Washproof plasters: they are like fabric plasters but can withstand wet conditions. 

• Blue plasters: they are waterproof and designed to be used by those in the food and catering industry.

The main types of bandages are gauze, compression, triangular and tube and like the plasters, they have different uses.

Here’s a list of important wound care you should have in your kit. 

• Wound bandages

• Alcohol pads 

• Burn care dressings

• Non-Adherent moist gauze dressings

• Medical gapes and adhesives

• Eye pads 

• Non-Woven gauze and many more

It’s best to use regular sterile saline as a cleansing solution because it is a nontoxic and isotonic solution. It does not damage healing tissues because tap water is used in the production.