Wound Management for the Advanced Practitioner

Increasingly, wound management is recognised as a specialised area of practice. Advances in wound-care products, surgical interventions, and social-support options create an often bewildering array of knowledge for healthcare practitioners. This textbook opens with a focus on the core elements of effective wound management: an understanding of how wounds heal and what inhibits wound healing, rigorous assessment, use of outcome measures, evidence-based approaches to practice, and an understanding of how clinical research is done. Key aspects of wound-bed preparation and management - diagnostic investigations, assessment and management of non-viable tissue, infected wounds, dressings and technology, pharmacological therapy, and acute wounds – are then elucidated. Optimal management of commonly-encountered wounds (venous leg ulceration, arterial and mixed arterial-venous ulceration, inflammatory ulcers, pressure injury, and the high-risk foot) and unusual wounds is described. The path to professionalisation of wound management in Australia is charted. The book ends with a list of wound care products (types, properties, uses, distributor-contact details). The editors of and specialist contributors to this text have aimed to build on the foundations provided by the numerous basic, introductory-level textbooks in the field to provide an authoritative, comprehensive, and up-to-date textbook for wound managers who wish to further develop their knowledge and skills.