Consistent wound care and nutritional support in treatment

Abstract

A preliminary study was conducted on 80 patients with all stages of pressure ulcers to ascertain the seven-day effect on healing of four treatments: 1) consistent wound care, 2) carefully controlled nutritional support, 3) both consistent wound care and carefully controlled nutritional support, and 4) standard hospital treatment. Formal analysis confirmed that differences observed in the sample characteristics of treatment groups did not influence outcomes. There were no group differences in healing as shown by three indicators: 1) improvement in the ulcer stage, 2) decrease in ulcer size, and 3) a dichotomous clinical rating of improvement. In all groups a normal transferrin was correlated with improvement in stage and size of ulcers. This suggests a nutritional role in wound healing.