My dad fell recently and has several skin tears that need dressing changes every day. When we care for older folks, we have to be extremely gentle. Their skin is like wet tissue paper and skin tears are painful, easily infected and take forever to heal. Wound care is important work to help our clients heal, but this is a delicate job that requires a few tricks.
Just cleansing the wound is tricky because the skin is raw.
- First! We wash our hands and use gloves to avoid adding germs to the wound.
- We use Vaseline infused gauze over the wound, then Kerlex, a soft, fluffy gauze wrap.
- We have to be diligent to not put any tape on his skin at all. It will pull skin off and cause another wound.
- If the previous dressing is sticking to the wound, we wet it down with a saline solution until it comes loose.
- We take pictures to document the changes as it heals.
- One way to help prevent skin issues in the first place is to treat their delicate skin with lotion or Vaseline often.