Photography in wound assessment

Wound care assessment with the Polaroid Macro 3 SLR

A holistic wound assessment is a vital first step in the wound management process. If it is not undertaken it is impossible to implement a treatment plan. The health care professional who undertakes the assessment must have an underpinning knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the skin, associated tissues and organs, and of the wound healing process. Young (1997) stated that:

Influencing clinical practice: evidence-based wound care

Influencing clinical practice increasingly requires quality evidence to support recommendations and guidelines. Review of the evidence for wound care interventions provides practitioners with several challenges. Randomized controlled trials are scarce and have many limitations with respect to wound care, while other sources of evidence are often flawed because of the complexities of the wound-healing process or are limited by their methodology. This article attempts to explain some of the benefits and problems associated with different types of evidence, all of which need to be considered in order to influence wound management.