Chronic wounds: elderly patients need special attention when being treated
Elderly persons often suffer from numerous physical and mental concomitant diseases.
The wounds of elderly persons differ significantly from those of younger patients. For example, not only chronic concomitant diseases can have negative effects on the occurrence of wounds and the healing thereof. Cognitive senile changes also need to be treated with special attention. Nancy Stotts and Harriet Hopf from the University of San Francisco draw particular attention to this fact in their synopsis (Nurs Clin N Am 2005; 40: 267-279).
The majority of patients treated for chronic wounds are older than 65. In addition, numerous physical and mental concomitant diseases make the wound healing process, which is already lengthy as it is, even more difficult.
As a consequence, delayed wound healing makes elderly persons more prone to wound infections. An often age-related reduced immune status among patients makes them even more prone. With age, however, hearing and vision also deteriorate. When treating wounds, this results in patients only being able to understand and actively take part in the wound healing and treating process to a considerably limited extent. For hearing problems make it difficult for patients to understand the instructions given by physicians or nursing staff.
If vision is impaired, the patient is limited in his/her abilities to monitor the healing process of a given wound or eventually change dressings on his/her own. Cognitive impairments can also result in patients not sufficiently understanding the instructions given by physicians and nursing staff.
Physicians and nursing staff should be conscious of the particular situation that the treatment of elderly patients with wounds brings with it. Only then, according to the authors, can wounds heal successfully.
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