Bedsore Prevention

Bedsore Prevention is any day better than its cure…

Bedsores end up in great pain and sufferings. Especially for a bed ridden patient, it becomes almost intolerable. Thus it becomes very important for the doctors and the family member of such patients to ensure that such cases need not occur by taking precautions and following some basic home remedies on a daily basis.

In prevention of bedsores, it becomes really necessary to understand the needs and requirements of individual patients and their circumstances so as to plan accordingly. This plan of care would ensure that the patient does not unnecessarily suffer because of bedsores.

• A proper assessment should be made to check the chances of patient getting a bedsore. A systematic reassessment should follow every by and then to make sure that such a case should not occur in the future too.
• The patient should be taken proper care of by bathing him/ her daily.
• Incontinence of the patient should be treated to avoid moisture on the skin, thereby avoiding pressure sores.
• Proper care should be taken in case of patients’ nutrition and hydration.
• Repositioning the patient regularly also helps in prevention of bed sores.
• Proper support devices should be used to help changing the pressure.
• Patient should be himself educated along with his family and the caretaker about bedsores.

Now the question arises how to treat the bed sores.

• Bed sores disrupt the flow of blood in the body making it really necessary to treat them immediately.
• At an early stage bedsores are red in colour and can be easily treated by proper wound care by cleaning it with saline solution and keeping the wound moist. Wound care helps in preventing further infection and aids in fast recovery.
• When the wound gets bigger in size, the treatment is quite painful. A mixture of magnesia and iodine aids in healing bedsore. Once mixed, it should be kept for some time and applied later on several times a day on the sore.
• Vitamin A, B Complex, C and E play a vital role in healing bedsore. Thus, intake of vitamins should be increased in the diet. Apart from vitamins, folic acid and zinc too are very useful and should be added in the diet.
• Applying honey and lecithin is again a method of treating a bed sore.
• Inflammation can be reduced by washing the wound thrice daily and spraying Lysol thereafter. This is helpful for pain.
• Aloe vera and a mixture of sugar and honey will prevent the sore from becoming poisonous.
• Consultation of doctor periodically on the treatment is a must.

These are some of the methods on how to treat the bed sores. Another common and easy way is the use of bedsore mattresses. These bedsore mattresses come with 165 bubbles helping in maintaining a cycle of inflation and deflation enabling air to pass.

The above mentioned precautions will indeed serve as a great prevention of bedsores.