What are the best types of wound dressings for wound healing? And importantly...how do they work?

It depends.

For thousands (yes thousands) of years we have been using traditional passive dressings when it comes to wound care.

In the 20th century that changed and over the last several decades we have seen major advancements in wound dressing technology.


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Wound dressing technology?

Yes. We started with clay and then leaves in 1650 BCE and now we have options ranging from simple gauze to foams, gels and collagen scaffolds.

In the current era, we consider four different types of wound dressings:

1.). Passive Dressings
2.). Active Dressings
3.). Bioactive Dressings
4.). Medicated Dressings

Each of these different groups of dressings has different uses, indications and effects.

For example, if you have a highly exudative sacral decubitus ulcer you may want a Foam dressing like lyofoam for moisture control and support.

If you have a burn you may want to use a hydrogel dressing for its cooling effect.

A contaminated wound may benefit from a medicated bioactive dressing like Parasol with its silver impregnated collagen scaffold.

It's important to know the different dressings available so you can have an idea of how you can match a dressing to the patient and to the wound.


Check out these AMAZING timestamps and fast forward if you need to:

Start 00:00
What is an ideal dressing? 03:08
Passive Dressings 08:44
Film Dressing 09:57
Foam Dressing 11:33
Hydrogel Dressing 12:42
Hydrocolloid Dressing 13:59
Alginate Dressing 15:30
Bioactive Dressings 17:10
Medicated Dressing 19:13


REFERENCES
Modern Wound Dressings https://citizensurgeon.co/modernwound
ABC Wound Dressings https://citizensurgeon.co/wounddressings
StatPearls Wound Dressings https://citizensurgeon.co/Wounddressi...

WHO AM I?
I'm Dr. Erik Pearson, FACS and I am a board certified pediatric surgeon living in Las Vegas. I make surgical education videos on all topics in general surgery as well as talks on lifestyle design as a surgeon, book reviews, and studying effectively. I also write a weekly newsletter called the Saturday Six where I identify Six different discoveries of the week. You can get the weekly newsletter by signing up to the CITIZENSURGEON Community!

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