It's a too familiar seen, a wound
that's not healing quickly enough,
while Olga is going to learn about a wound
therapy that's simple to use and will
help your wound heal faster, take a look.
(music.)
I'm sure many of us can relate to this
either you or someone you know has a
wound that simply is taking way too long
to heal but there's something you can do
about it, joining us with lots of insight
is Dr. Alison Garten a podiatrist
surgeon and expert in wound care therapy.
Good morning.
Morning.
Thanks for being
here.
I'm happy to be here.
Now before we
start talking about wounds and what we
can do I just want to show our audience
real quick, we have this obvious display
is not very attractive but this is a
very common wounded in people today isn't
it?
What is it?
Yes this is called a
venous wound caused from an underlying vain
problem, so it's actually more common
than you would think.
So how often doctor
do you see a wound that takes maybe a
bit longer to heal than expected and not
just this one but any wound for that
matter?
You know you would be surprised
it's actually much more common than you
think.
What happens oftentimes is
somebody injures their skin to some minor
injury to their skin and they go about
their daily life and they don't think
too much of it.
Because there's not a lot
of pain there's minimal bleeding they
continue with their daily routine and
then they realize it's not healing so
it's very common.
And does that occur
with any type of wound?
It can, it can
occur with any type of wound, yeah
delayed healing, slow healing can really
occur with anybody and it's really the
first thing I always tell people to do
is if you recognize that you have a sore
the first thing to do is actually clean
the area because unfortunately wounds
become infected pretty easily you know
we're noticing small kids coming in
young healthy kids are coming in with a
small wound and it's getting infected
because they're bacteria in the environment has changed so much
over the years so even like a small
scrape on a knee, people are coming
with infection so making sure to make
sure you clean it early on is most
important.
And why, I mean what prevents it from
healing quickly or quicker for that
matter?
Well there's a lot of things
first of all it could be somebody who
has uncontrolled diabetes, again an
underlying vein problem they may have a
lot of medical conditions that make
their immune system weak such as let's
say you have a patient who is has
rheumatoid arthritis and they're in
chronic steroid use, or someone who's
currently undergoing cancer treatments.
All those things slow a patient's
healing ability.
A smoker?
A smoker so yeah
things you probably are figure it out.
Smoking, poor nutrition,
lack of exercise those all contribute to
poor healing.
So are there things we can
do to help our wounds heal faster?
As a wound care specialist we have
tons of different treatment modalities
but there's something recently that
I started to use, and every
patient is unique but I started to use a
product called Pico.
What is that?
Pico is a
negative pressure wound therapy device
and it's indicated for using on open
wounds are closed incision wounds, is a
dressing pad.
And it's this right here.
Correct.
So tell me what I'm looking at
and what exactly it does?
So this looks
like a just addressing pad right?
Absolutely, but what you can't, it looks like a big bandaid.
It does,
it does it looks like a big bandaid but
what you can't see is it's four layers
of technology.
In this first layer you
see here goes directly on the wound bed
but it protects the wound from the outside
environment.
Okay.
So it limits chances of
the wound getting infected with this on.
Okay.
Secondly, because it is a nice
dressing padded it limits the chances of
re-injury to the wound itself.
And I can feel the cushion in there.
Correct.
Okay but the last three layers are
really where the true technology is, it
evaporates and wicks away the excess
moisture and why that's important is
because having that negative pressure on
the wound really helps reduce the edema
by helping promote healthy tissue.
Okay so let's go back to the leg I
see there are different sizes.
Yeah.
We're going to
talk about this in just a bit okay but
tell me what you would do with this poor
individual who has this wound?
So yeah.
How does Pico helps this?
Pico comes in
several different dressing pad sizes so
what I would do is determine what size
is best for this wound?
So I want to make
sure the dressing pad is slightly larger
than the wound itself.
Okay so you kind
of cover it and beyond.
And is exactly
what you said before it is very similar
to a band-aid so you have the adhesive
on the back side so what I'm going to
first do is take off the adhesive from
one side.
Okay.
And place it over the
wound.
So pretty easy to use.
Very easy and then I'm going to take the
adhesive from the other side and place it
directly on the wound itself.
Okay.
And then you're just going to firm out
the edges here, so what this is doing is
creating negative pressure on the wound
itself in pushing away the fluid that is
in the wound itself by minimizing the
destruction to the surrounding tissue.
The one thing I want to mention is you
want to make sure this port you can see
the wound is here I tried to move the
port away from the wound just a little
bit and so let's go ahead and start the
device or show you how it started and we
would just hit this button and so the
patient actually would feel no discomfort when the device on.
No pain.
No pain whatsoever, they may feel a little bit of
pressure but I can't tell you I've ever
had a patient who's had discomfort
using this device.
So a lot of patients
are sticking in their pocket and nobody
knows they have a wound.
And they leave it
on for how many days?
And depending on
the amount of drainage it can be left on
up to seven days which is really nice
for the patients so from a family
standpoint from a caregiver standpoint
there's a lot of ease with this use.
Touching upon this one here this is
obviously an open wound we have a larger
size same concept?
Yes.
You would put it
over exactly.
And the patient would get
better.
Exactly it will help heal
the wound and again we're trying to help
promote this healthy tissue.
And doctor
can you use Pico on all types of wounds?
You can use this is on almost all types
wounds, from a 12 year old healthy boy
who feel off their bike, to a patient who
might have a diabetic foot ulcer.
It can be use on almost any wound type
from open wounds to the close incision
sites.
Even someone who had a c-section like
me?
Yes yes surgeries, c-sections,
hysterectomies, a lot of orthopedic surgeries,
knee and hip replacements, very commonly
used now to use Pico and the whole goal
of that is to reduce the likelihood of
that incision site opening up you
call that a wound dehiscence and
unfortunately if a wound opens up the patient's
much more likely to have an infection and
oftentimes have to be readmitted back to
the hospital for another surgery or for
antibiotics.
And who uses this actual
therapy?
Doctors, nurses?
Yes nurses and
doctors pretty much any healthcare
professional, it's a relatively new
product so if you want to talk to your
healthcare provider about it make sure
you bring that put as an option.
Because I was going to tell you
15 years ago I did not have this option
and I would have worn it because I do
have a scar and I've lived with it it is
what it is you know I've got keloids
but too late now 15 years later?
Sorry plastic surgery?
(laughs.)
Possibly.
It's okay I can live with it.
Doctor thank you so much I do appreciate your
time and thanks for all the information.
Plastic surgery it is, and if you'd like
more information on Pico you can visit
their website possible with pico dot com
possible with pico dot com or check out our
website thebalancingact.com [Music]