Chronic wounds are a growing problem in the UK, impacting on patients quality of life as well as vital healthcare resources. Preventing and managing biofilms is fast becoming a primary objective in wound care treatment. Poloxamer-based surfactants, which target biofilms, are emerging as an effective treatment of chronic wounds. Surfactants have been shown to play an active role in cleansing, desloughing, debridement, prevention, disruption and removal of biofilms. This article explores the role of biofilms in wound development — how to prevent, identify and treat them. It also looks at surfactants, such as poloxamer, which is showing promising results in the management of wound biofilm. One particular poloxamer-based surfactant, known for its anti-biofilm capabilities and contained within the UCS™ debridement cloth, is discussed in this article.
Caring for patients in a community setting continues to offer challenges to nurses and therapists because of the complexities of patients’ intricate and complicated conditions. The demand on district nursing is increasing as more patients are being cared for in their own homes with no additional resources to support nurses. Management of lower leg wounds dominates the workload. Compression bandaging has historically been the treatment of choice to reduce oedema and heal venous leg ulcers. However, there are safe and reliable alternatives to assist community nurses in their practice. Getting compression therapy right first time achieves many positive aspects: it improves patient quality of life, reduces costs, and enhances staff morale and job satisfaction. This article explores some of the challenges nurses face, and offers solutions with the use of the juxta range from medi UK.
The 2014 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for the assessment and management of psoriasis were updated in 2017. There is little of note in relation to the previous articles in this series, however since the development of more biologics and cheaper forms of biosimilars, the guidelines were amended to reflect these readily available treatments (NICE, 2017a). The seventh and final article in this series provides an overview of systemic non-biological and biologic therapies. It looks at how these treatments target and treat psoriasis, as well as side-effects, contraindications and monitoring recommendations of certain drugs.
Patients at high risk of malnutrition include those who have recently been discharged from hospital, those with chronic diseases, progressive neurological disease, acute illness, frailty, social issues, undergoing rehabilitation or end of life/palliative care (Holdoway et al, 2017). Community nurses are often the first-line of care for these patients and can play an important role in ensuring that they get the best nutritional care. This article discusses some of the areas for consideration when assessing malnutrition risk and outlines a number of new resources designed to assist nursing teams in identifying, monitoring and managing patients at risk of malnutrition.
Throughout 2019, JCN has been continuing to run educational sessions via Facebook Live and is delighted, together with Essity and Mole Productions, to have won the Pharmaceutical Society Digital Award 2019 for healthcare professional education, training and support for these events.
This piece covers a recent Facebook Live event, which looked at antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the implications this has on wound care (coinciding with World Antibiotic Awareness Week). The session was presented by Dawn Stevens, medical education manager, Essity, who was joined by Alison Schofield, tissue viability service lead and clinical nurse specialist. Throughout the event, a poll was taken to capture real-time data as to the audience’s views on AMR — the results of which are presented here.
Here, Teresa Burdett, senior lecturer in integrated health care; professional lead for interprofessional learning and education, unit lead for foundations of integrated care and person-centred services, and Lee-Ann Fenge, professor in social care, both from Bournemouth University, explore the rhetoric and reality of the NHS Long Term Plan (NHS England, 2019a) and examine some of the challenges highlighted by the NHS Interim People Plan (NHS England, 2019b), which sets out a game plan for delivery to NHS employees.
Being an unpaid caregiver isn’t something that you plan or prepare for, so when my mother was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND), a non-curable, life-limiting, neurodegenerative condition, it was like entering into the abyss of the unknown, but knowing the devastating and inevitable outcome.
Dehisced surgical wounds are a common occurrence and are seen both in primary and secondary care. The impact of a dehisced wound is far reaching. For the National Health Service, there are increased in-patient costs and additional resources in terms of an extended healing time, such as staffing and dressing materials and therapies. For the patient, a dehisced wound can impact significantly on their wellbeing and quality of life and for patients of working age, the economic impact of not being able to work can be enormous. This article discusses the incidence of wound dehiscence, outlines the types of wounds which are most likely to dehisce, and the most common reason for this, wound infection. Strategies for managing wound infection, including the use of antiseptic and antimicrobial products, together with a frequently used therapy, topical negative pressure therapy (TNPT), are also discussed.
