Selecting the right dressing is essential for optimal wound healing. If you live in Tourcoing, Roubaix and surroundings and are looking for wound care, nurses can navigate the many options available by understanding how some essential dressings work.

Antimicrobial dressings

This is an important issue for patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals, which should always be addressed appropriately. The odor is caused by volatile agents, including short chain organic acids, produced by anaerobic bacteria.

The type of bacteria present can sometimes be identified by smell alone, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which has a distinct, sweet smell. When treating a smelly wound, it may be necessary to use a dressing that absorbs the released volatile molecules. When attached to moist surfaces, bacteria have the ability to build a biofilm – a community or colony of bacteria that have become encased in a slimy film. Only a nurse in Tourcoing specialized in this field can remove these colonies and thanks to the debridement method.

Debriding Agents

Debridement, by which dead tissue is removed from the wound, is an important aspect of wound management – ​​it prevents the formation of biofilms and infection in the wound. The home nurse in Tourcoing competent in debridement, doctor and surgeon can carry out a clean debridement with a scalpel or a curette at the patient’s bedside or surgical debridement in the theater. However, debridement can also be performed using other methods, including moist dressings, such as hydrogels and/or antibacterial dressings, such as honey or polyhexanide gel (PHMB).

Maggot treatment is widely used for debridement. The sterile larvae are placed on the surface of the wound and produce an enzyme which breaks down the biofilm so that the bacteria can be eliminated. Maggots have been shown to be effective in infected surgical wounds and many other types of wounds, and tissue oxygenation is measurably increased during fly treatment.

Proteolytic activity and pH

Proteases are naturally produced enzymes that act on proteins by breaking them down into peptides and amino acids. In wound healing, the major proteases are matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which are extremely important for the healing of acute wounds. However, in chronic wounds there is overproduction of MMPs and increased proteolytic activity is known to damage the wound bed, degrade the extracellular matrix and cause periwound skin problems.