Wound Care

A treatment program specifically tailored to your needs will be based on the most effective approach, which may include:

Evaluations

• Vascular, laboratory, nutritional, and radiology evaluations
• Debridement – removal of damaged tissue
• Laboratory evaluations
• Nutritional evaluations
• Pain assessment
• Diabetic education
• Radiology evaluations
• Mobility assessments
• Transcutaneous oxygen monitoring – measuring oxygen in the tissue

Medical Treatment

Common medical treatments for chronic and non-healing wounds include: 

• Specialty dressings
• Multi-layer compression wraps
• Total contact casts
• Skin substitutes
• Negative pressure wound therapy

Surgical Treatment

Severe wounds that have caused a significant amount of damage to the skin and musculoskeletal system may need expert surgical care and treatment to heal properly. UR Medicine vascular and plastic and reconstructive surgeons use a variety of methods to repair and reconstruct wounds so they heal correctly, restoring function and improving appearance.

Reconstructive surgeries for wounds may include:  

• Skin grafts 
• Flap surgery 
• Tissue expansion surgery 
• Microvascular surgery

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy 

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO) is used as a treatment for problematic, non-healing wounds that meet specific criteria. Over the course of HBO treatments, patients are evaluated to see if the concentration of oxygen has increased in the blood near the wound. If the oxygen level is higher, the therapy is most likely beneficial to the patient. 

During the treatments, you will breathe 100 percent oxygen inside a pressurized chamber, quickly increasing the concentration of oxygen in the bloodstream, where it is delivered to a patient's wound site for faster healing. Essentially, HBO therapy helps heal the wound from the inside out. This therapy can help reduce swelling, fight infection, and build new blood vessels, ultimately producing healthy tissue. It is also effective in fighting certain types of infections, improving circulation, in stimulating growth of new blood vessels, and in treating soft tissue radiation injuries, chronic refractory osteomyelitis, compromised skin grafts and flaps, and diabetic wounds of the lower extremities.