In children, skinned knees and elbows are common and usually heal with little more than a bandage. However, with age, wounds take longer to heal. Studies show the human body’s ability to repair the skin diminishes as a person gets older. Poor health can slow healing even further, especially when patients are dealing with diabetes, blood vessel disease and even malnutrition.
An estimated 6.5 million people in the United States are faced with wounds that do not heal after several weeks, and many of those live in Eastern Kentucky. The Wound Center at Pikeville Medical Center (PMC) provides specialized treatment and offers an aggressive, multi-disciplinary approach to treating chronic and non-healing wounds that have resisted other treatments.
PMC’s Board Certified physicians Mariano E. Rivera, DPM, and Timothy Wright, DO, FACOS, work together with a dedicated staff to provide a comprehensive approach to wound care. The two physicians specialize in treating non-healing wounds, particularly prevalent among diabetic patients.
A patient who has a wound that has not begun to heal after two weeks or has not entirely healed within six weeks may benefit from advanced wound care modalities offered at the PMC Wound Center such as:
• Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
• Cellular tissue-based products & bio-engineered skin grafting
• Total contact casting
• Compression wrapping
• Advanced wound dressings
Successful wound care is a combination of several treatments that work together to achieve healing.
Indications that specialized wound care may be necessary include:
• Diabetic Ulcers
• Neuropathic Ulcers
• Pressure Ulcers
• Venous Insufficiency
• Ischemic Ulcers
• Traumatic Wounds
• Surgical Wounds
• Osteomyelitis
