Patient education content written for Cardinal Health’s website and repurposed for newsletter
Your skin is your body’s largest organ. It has several functions, including protecting your body from outside dirt and germs, helping you regulate body temperature, and making it possible to experience sensations like touch, hotness, and coldness.
The skin is made up of three layers: the outermost layer, or epidermis; just underneath the epidermis, the dermis includes the connective tissue that keeps your skin flexible and strong; the deepest layer, called the hypodermis layer, includes fatty tissue that helps insulate the body.
The skin and tissue underneath it can be injured in many ways. In general, a wound is an injury in which the skin is torn, cut, or punctured, known as an open wound, or where blunt force trauma causes a contusion, known as a closed wound.
Acute or traumatic wounds are the result of injuries that disrupt the tissue, like abrasions, punctures, stab/gunshot wounds, incisions, and lacerations.
A chronic wound is a wound that does not heal in an orderly set of stages or in a predictable amount of time.
Treatment
A minor wound will usually heal on its own, but for more severe wounds, a health care provider may need to monitor the wound to ensure that it heals properly.
For acute wounds, the healing process follows a predictable three-phase process. When a wound becomes chronic, this predictable process of healing becomes stalled.
Your healthcare provider will choose dressings for the wound based on the wound’s condition and other factors, such as your overall health. These dressings are specially designed to promote healing.
Edgepark carries a full line of basic and advanced wound care supplies to address a multitude of acute and chronic wounds.
SOURCES
www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/picture-of-the-skin
Kathleen Walder Portfolio 