CWCMR · 2016
Preventing, minimizing, and managing pain in patients with chronic wounds: challenges and solutions
Serena, T.E., Yaakov, R.A., Aslam, S., & Aslam, R.S.
Chronic Wound Care Management and Research (Dovepress), 25 July 2016
In brief
This review looks at why patients with chronic wounds experience pain, including tissue damage, nerve damage, poor blood flow, infection and painful procedures such as dressing changes and debridement, and at the limits of common pain scales that rely on patient self-report. The authors recommend a patient-centered, culturally sensitive approach that uses a validated pain scale with a quality-of-life questionnaire, identifies and treats the underlying causes of pain, and uses atraumatic dressings that need fewer changes.
Co-authored by SerenaGroup researchers.
Plain-language summary by SerenaGroup. See the full text for complete methods and results.
Abstract
It is widely known that pain frequently accompanies certain types of chronic wounds, most notably arterial insufficiency ulcers, venous leg ulcers, and diabetic foot ulcers; however, until recently, pain associated with chronic wounds has not received much attention. A limited number of studies have explored the impact of painful wounds on the quality of life. Nonetheless, these early works have brought wound-related pain (WRP) to the forefront and highlighted the importance of pain assessment and management in enhancing the quality of life and improving wound healing outcomes. This review of the current literature on WRP presents an overview of pain pathophysiology, clinical features of WRP, and the limitations of pain assessment methods, and offers clinical pearls on preventing, managing, and minimizing WRP.
Keywords
chronic woundspain assessmentpain managementpatient experiencequality of life
Related in Chronic Wound Microbiology and Biofilms
