Cancer can be a devastating illness causing severe debilitation and prolonged confinement to bed. It is, therefore, not unexpected that oncologists would be required to manage pressure ulcers as part of the comprehensive care of their cancer patients. The consequences of these lesions can be devastating, even fatal. Thus, the common bedsore should not be overlooked as an important clinical prob...

In the past, relatives and patients appeared to accept that pressure ulcers were an inevitable result of chronic conditions and reduced mobility. Now they are viewed as evidence of a failure to provide a reasonable standard of care and action can be brought against those responsible, for compensation.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the effectiveness of a new high-performance Australian medical sheepskin (meeting Australian Standard 4480.1-1998) in preventing pressure ulcers in a general hospital population at low to moderate risk of these ulcers. DESIGN Open-label randomised controlled clinical trial. SETTING A large metropolitan teaching hospital in Melbourne, Victoria, in 2000. PARTICIPANTS 4...

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES It is widely recognized that Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients have a greater likelihood of developing pressure ulcers in comparison to hospital or home care patients. Accordingly, this study aimed to evaluate whether specific clinical characteristics could be used as clinical indicators towards pressure ulcers prevention. METHOD We monitored 210 hospitalized ICU patients...

OBJECTIVE Pressure ulcer development is a quality of care indicator, as pressure ulcers are potentially preventable. Yet pressure ulcer is a leading cause of morbidity, discomfort and additional healthcare costs for inpatients. Methods are lacking for accurate surveillance of pressure ulcer in hospitals to track occurrences and evaluate care improvement strategies. The main study aim was to val...

BACKGROUND The occiput is a common location for development of pressure ulcers in hospitalized infants and young children. However, risk factors associated with occurrence of the ulcers have not been fully described. OBJECTIVE To identify factors associated with development of occipital pressure ulcers in acutely ill infants and children. METHODS Charts of all patients with occipital pressu...

Prevention and healing of pressure ulcers in critically ill patients can be especially challenging because of the patients' burden of illness and degree of physiological compromise. Providing adequate nutrition may help halt the development or worsening of pressure ulcers. Optimization of nutrition can be considered an essential ingredient in prevention and healing of pressure ulcers. Understan...

Pressure ulcers are an important perioperatory care quality indicator This is a longitudinal case series study, performed with the following objectives: to estimate the incidence of pressure ulcers in patients submitted to medium and large surgeries; rate them according to the stage and location; verify the association with the variables: gender, age, body mass index (BMI), co-morbidities, surg...

The purpose of this investigation was to render a more complete understanding of subjective perceptions of pressure ulcers from the perspective of family dyads, and to study the effect of these subjective experiences on preventive behaviors and pressure ulcer outcomes. A naturalistic inquiry, combined with objective measures, was used. Twenty-one dyads participated in four in-depth interviews t...