A wet to dry dressing is best. The most important thing is keep pressure off of it. It it is on the back, place a pillow behind the patient to take pressure off of the wound. Or use pillows to float the heels or elbows if the wound is there. Reposition the patient every couple hours to prevent sores. If you can find any dressings with silver or colloidal silver in them that helps prevent infection. Also, make sure the patient gets protein to help heal or at least make sure the wound does not get worse. Peanut butter, eggs, Ensure, Glucerna, anything with lots of protein helps heal.
The inflating/pulsing mattresses are so effective that Medicare now considers bedsores 100% preventable,and WILL NOT PAY an institution for the treatment of bedsores aquirred during the stay --the institution must pay out of their own pocket for the treatment of them. Do you think institutions have suddenly become much, much more diligent about preventing bedsores? Why yes they have! They are suddenly AMAZINGLY alert and attentive! They go to extraordinary lengths and check incoming patients practically with a magnifying glass and document the tiniest hints of a bedsore on any incoming patient. Virtually all hospitals now have rather expensive (but effective) beds.
The patient has to be turned from side to side if lying horizontally every two hours, but more when decubitus (bed sores) are present. The weight of the body is the issue here and needs constant attention. This should not happen.
They used an inflatable mattress under my dad at his nursing home. Separate baffles in the mattress inflate at different times to relieve pressure on his backside and he never got bedsores again. Of course this mattress was only provided to him AFTER I threatened to report the nursing home to the state for neglect of care because he got a bedsore!
Katie, please write a letter to Medicare and alert them of what happened to your mom. You have all the documentation needed. Her hospital papers, her release, the nurse, etc... Document and send it to them. Medicare sends a monthly billing report. Check the back for whom to call or send it to. If you don't alert them, they won't know that the facility has been slacking. When you write to Medicare, also keep a copy for yourself.
Katie...I feel your disgust having gone thru this wife my wife. She had a stage 5 that I wasn't informed about until she transferred hospitals After all the dead skin was removed it was the size of a softball and you could actually see the tail-bone. She also had Osteo and IV anitbiotics which also ended up causing C-diff. The biggest help to healing was a wound vac,and a heavy protein diet along with daily care in the hospital by a wound specialist. What an incredible mess they put this poor girl through who comes out of a 6 week coma after the accident to learn she will be paralyzed for the rest of life with a C7 SCI and now can't even sit in a chair until this gets healed. I did that whole Medicare rating thing and even a formal complaint and what a pathetic waste of time that was. By the time they assigned an investigator (8 months!!), the people who needed to be interviewed had left the facility and they couldn't find anything in her records that mentioned the sore. You read that right....since nobody "documented" the stages and they claimed to have followed proper procedure of turning every (2) hours than they couldn't legally prove fault and cause of action!!. My advice....don't waste your time with that BS rating system and their oversight. The real irony here is that her injury was severe enough to have a personal case manager assigned to review and watch over her care and I know now that this should have been something high on their list of things to look after. My advice is to learn as much as you can to be the biggest advocate and voice in making sure your loved one is properly taken care of.
I used pillows to take the pressure off of my fathers bed sores and I rubbed coconut oil on thesores in the morning and evening. They healed up fast. The difficulty I had was getting him to roll over to take the weight off of them. Once I got him positioned, he would roll right back on the bed sores, so then I kept changing the position of the pillow, that seemed to help the most.
omg... so sad, patients in care centers get such severe bed sores!! i think we should check out our parents or loved ones bodies, when we visit!! not hard to do.
Do you think institutions have suddenly become much, much more diligent about preventing bedsores? Why yes they have!
They are suddenly AMAZINGLY alert and attentive! They go to extraordinary lengths and check incoming patients practically with a magnifying glass and document the tiniest hints of a bedsore on any incoming patient. Virtually all hospitals now have rather expensive (but effective) beds.
My advice....don't waste your time with that BS rating system and their oversight. The real irony here is that her injury was severe enough to have a personal case manager assigned to review and watch over her care and I know now that this should have been something high on their list of things to look after.
My advice is to learn as much as you can to be the biggest advocate and voice in making sure your loved one is properly taken care of.
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