Are your wound cleansing practices up-to-date? Find out with these top tips for cleaning wounds properly and choosing the right cleansers.
When you get clinicians together to talk about wounds, dressing choices are usually a popular topic. Wound cleansing? Not so much.
Cleaning a wound thoroughly – and frequently – is a crucial part of wound care. In fact, you should clean a wound every time you change a dressing – unless it’s contraindicated. Why is it so important? Cleaning a wound:
- removes loose debris and planktonic (free-floating) bacteria.
- provides protection to promote an optimal environment for healing.
- facilitates wound assessment by optimizing visualization of the wound.
So, how do you know if your wound cleansing practices are up-to-date? It all comes down to choosing the appropriate cleansers and cleaning the wound using the correct wound cleaning technique.