The treatment of wounds can be traced to the dawn of civilization. Burns, lacerations and punctures have all left their mark on the body ever since humankind was first exposed to the fire, the knife and the fork.
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Whether or not a wound has been accidentally induced, surgically incised or the result of disease, (such as an ulcer), it's a break in the skin and an avenue for infection.
The first course of treatment, as any first aider well knows, is to stop the bleeding - and the first question may very well be “with what” - because the nature of accidents is that they don't always occur in proximity to a first aid box. Aside from this, there is always an exception to a rule. While living in the arctic, I was called to a house for help during a violent altercation. When I arrived, the perpetrator of the violence was on the floor and bleeding profusely. He had made an unconventional entrance by smashing though a plate glass window. Following a bloody attack on the occupants he had collapsed - so rather than trying to revive him for a possible second round, I let the debilitating effect of blood loss enable his victims to be patched without interference.
So now to the point - and returning to the “with what” question - dressing a wound merely to arrest the flow of blood may introduce other problems principally, the complications that relate to infection.
Towards the end of 2008, Smith & Nephew Inc. in Canada (http://global.smith-nephew.com/master/20322.htm) expanded its unique range of antimicrobial barrier dressings that are marketed under the brand name “Acticoat.” The dressings offer a unique range of use in partial and full-thickness wounds including pressure ulcers, venous ulcers, diabetic ulcers, surgical wounds, first and second degree burns, and graft sites. The dressings have now been cleared by FDA for use in the U.S.
Acticoat Flex products were designed to support physicians dealing with wounds and injuries of high risk of infection. Combining the flexibility of a polyester mesh substrate with the power of nanocrystalline silver technology, the Acticoat Flex line sets a new standard for patient comfort and ease of use.
This type of dressing offers important properties such as speed of kill, concentration, duration/spectrum of activity and lack of resistance that enables close physical contact to the wound bed.
They are soft, stretchable and conformable. They are painless to remove and do not hinder the patient’s movement. The dressing’s unique open weave structure also facilitates the passage of fluid, thus making it ideal to promote in combination with Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT).
Because of its patented Nanocrystalline silver technology, the Acticoat range of products offers superior infection control properties. It is a highly soluble form of silver that exists in tiny crystals that are not visible to the naked eye. These crystals provide a greater surface area for moisture contact and thus are more soluble and reactive than other silver presentations. Some other forms of silver can take hours to work which allows time for bacteria to reproduce. Nanocrystalline silver is also effective against micro-organisms present in the wound and it is currently the most effective form of silver available for wound care.
Manufacturing Acticoat wound dressings is a laborious, 14-hour process called physical vapor deposition in which high-density polyethylene is fed through a pressure vessel whose vacuum chamber is filled with electrically charged argon gas. This binds the ionized silver particles to the material in a one-micron-thick layer. By comparison, the human hair is 80 microns thick.
The polyethylene material is ultrasonically bonded to a laminate backing, then packaged and sterilized with radiation.
Silver has long been used as an anti-microbial, but one hurdle concerning its application in a dressing was that the chloride in skin causes silver to become inactive. This has been overcome by using tiny particles to slow the release of silver ions. A single piece of Acticoat can remain on a wound for up to a week.
ASM International, The Materials Information Society, recently recognized the inventor, Dr. Robert Burrell with their prestigious Engineering Materials Achievement Award for the development of technology and manufacturing methods for silver based nanostructured bioactive coatings.
Dr. Burrell began his work on the antimicrobial properties of silver in the early 1990s. A microbiologist by training, Dr. Burrell has become an expert in burn and chronic wound healing. He is presently Canada Research Chair in Nanostructured Biomaterials and a professor with the Faculties of Engineering and Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.
Whether or not a wound has been accidentally induced, surgically incised or the result of disease, (such as an ulcer), it's a break in the skin and an avenue for infection.
The first course of treatment, as any first aider well knows, is to stop the bleeding - and the first question may very well be “with what” - because the nature of accidents is that they don't always occur in proximity to a first aid box. Aside from this, there is always an exception to a rule. While living in the arctic, I was called to a house for help during a violent altercation. When I arrived, the perpetrator of the violence was on the floor and bleeding profusely. He had made an unconventional entrance by smashing though a plate glass window. Following a bloody attack on the occupants he had collapsed - so rather than trying to revive him for a possible second round, I let the debilitating effect of blood loss enable his victims to be patched without interference.
So now to the point - and returning to the “with what” question - dressing a wound merely to arrest the flow of blood may introduce other problems principally, the complications that relate to infection.
Towards the end of 2008, Smith & Nephew Inc. in Canada (http://global.smith-nephew.com/master/20322.htm) expanded its unique range of antimicrobial barrier dressings that are marketed under the brand name “Acticoat.” The dressings offer a unique range of use in partial and full-thickness wounds including pressure ulcers, venous ulcers, diabetic ulcers, surgical wounds, first and second degree burns, and graft sites. The dressings have now been cleared by FDA for use in the U.S.
Acticoat Flex products were designed to support physicians dealing with wounds and injuries of high risk of infection. Combining the flexibility of a polyester mesh substrate with the power of nanocrystalline silver technology, the Acticoat Flex line sets a new standard for patient comfort and ease of use.
This type of dressing offers important properties such as speed of kill, concentration, duration/spectrum of activity and lack of resistance that enables close physical contact to the wound bed.
They are soft, stretchable and conformable. They are painless to remove and do not hinder the patient’s movement. The dressing’s unique open weave structure also facilitates the passage of fluid, thus making it ideal to promote in combination with Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT).
Because of its patented Nanocrystalline silver technology, the Acticoat range of products offers superior infection control properties. It is a highly soluble form of silver that exists in tiny crystals that are not visible to the naked eye. These crystals provide a greater surface area for moisture contact and thus are more soluble and reactive than other silver presentations. Some other forms of silver can take hours to work which allows time for bacteria to reproduce. Nanocrystalline silver is also effective against micro-organisms present in the wound and it is currently the most effective form of silver available for wound care.
Manufacturing Acticoat wound dressings is a laborious, 14-hour process called physical vapor deposition in which high-density polyethylene is fed through a pressure vessel whose vacuum chamber is filled with electrically charged argon gas. This binds the ionized silver particles to the material in a one-micron-thick layer. By comparison, the human hair is 80 microns thick.
The polyethylene material is ultrasonically bonded to a laminate backing, then packaged and sterilized with radiation.
Silver has long been used as an anti-microbial, but one hurdle concerning its application in a dressing was that the chloride in skin causes silver to become inactive. This has been overcome by using tiny particles to slow the release of silver ions. A single piece of Acticoat can remain on a wound for up to a week.
ASM International, The Materials Information Society, recently recognized the inventor, Dr. Robert Burrell with their prestigious Engineering Materials Achievement Award for the development of technology and manufacturing methods for silver based nanostructured bioactive coatings.
Dr. Burrell began his work on the antimicrobial properties of silver in the early 1990s. A microbiologist by training, Dr. Burrell has become an expert in burn and chronic wound healing. He is presently Canada Research Chair in Nanostructured Biomaterials and a professor with the Faculties of Engineering and Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.
Mark Sunderland
Medical Engineering Columnist: Electrical engineer and president, Biomedical Industry Group.
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