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Prevention During Surgery
One of the best ways to prevent pressure ulcers from forming is frequent movement, particularly standing and walking, but that is not possible during surgery. Instead, because the patient remains motionless duringgeneral anesthesia, the prevention of ulcers falls to the staff of the operating room and equipment.
Many operating rooms now use padded operating tables, which utilize many different materials to provide a soft cushion for the patient to lie upon for an extended period of time. The operating room staff also pays attention to bony areas, such as the bridge of the nose, which can experience pressure from the breathing mask used during anesthesia. For some, the bridge of the nose is padded with a small dressing, for others, a fluffy pad may be placed under an elbow or a hip.
Prevention After Surgery
For some patients, special beds may be utilized which can reduce the formation of pressure ulcers.
Risk Factors
There are many risk factors for pressure ulcers, with the inability to move frequently being one of the most important. Patients in hospitals who are unable to move themselves are typically turned to a new position at least every two hours to prevent the formation of pressure ulcers.
Other risk factors include:
Staging
Staging pressure ulcersis a way of categorizing the severity of the injury. Different types of pressure ulcers require treatments that vary widely depending on how serious the ulcer has become. Some pressure ulcers are padded with a bandage to stop further damage while others may require one or more surgeries to repair and treat.
Category/Stage I Non-blanchable erythema:Intact skin with non-blanchable redness of a localized area usually over a bony prominence. Darkly pigmented skin may not have visible blanching; its color may differ from the surrounding area. The area may be painful, firm, soft, warmer or cooler as compared to adjacent tissue.
Category/Stage II Partial thickness:Partial thickness loss of skin presenting as a shallow open ulcer with a red pink wound bed. May also present as an intact or open/ruptured serum-filled or serosanguineous filled blister.
SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.NPUAP Pressure Ulcer Stages/Categories. National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel.Patient Specific and Surgical Characteristics in the Development of Pressure Ulcers. American Journal of Critical Care.
Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.NPUAP Pressure Ulcer Stages/Categories. National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel.Patient Specific and Surgical Characteristics in the Development of Pressure Ulcers. American Journal of Critical Care.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
NPUAP Pressure Ulcer Stages/Categories. National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel.Patient Specific and Surgical Characteristics in the Development of Pressure Ulcers. American Journal of Critical Care.
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