Pressure Ulcers

Pressure ulcers, also known as pressure sores or bedsores , are areas of damaged skin and tissue. They develop when pressure cuts off the blood supply, usually when someone sits or lies in one position for too long, and are a complication of many illnesses or conditions where someone is immobile for too long.

Key Nursing Goal in the Treatment of Pressure Ulcers

Medically, pressure sores develop from frictional shearing of compromised skin in static patients. The key nursing goal identified by EPUAP (European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Board) in this area was to "protect against the adverse effects of external mechanical forces: pressure, friction and shear on skin". Parafricta products help with this.

Protect pressure ulcers from shear and friction

Parafricta™ Fabric products offer protection against friction and shear forces and are compatible with all existing methods of protecting aganist pressure, via special beds and matresses.

Results of clinical trials

More than 25 NHS sites in the UK have already evaluated the Parafricta products. Trials were conducted at Great Ormond Street on children with fragile skin due to Epidermolysis Bullosa. Other trials took place at hospices, nursing homes, and home-based patients.

The results confirmed that the Parafricta garments and bedclothes prevent skin breakdown and progression to clinically detrimental pressure sores.

Wound dressing protection to stop pressure ulcers becoming chronic wounds

Many chronic wounds are started by frictional shearing of compromised skin in cardiovascular compromised, diabetic or bed-confined patients. Friction dislodges and "rucks up" wound dressings that are in place to treat an ulcer, as the patient moves about in the bed or chair. This causes a jerk or "snatch" when one surface begins to move against another, which results in damage to skin or displacement of a dressing. Parafricta™ fabric can be used to avoid this effect.

Wound dressings are expensive to replace in terms of cost per dressing and time spent by nurses cleaning the adhesives from around the wound. Aggressive adhesives that would keep these dressings in place also have a downside: They cause shearing of the already weak skin and expansion of the existing wound trauma, thus creating the need for larger dressings and more adhesive to keep them in place.

The Parafricta Bootees and Undergarments provide wound dressing protection.