Wound Center
In a normal active lifestyle, you can expect to suffer from wounds—cuts, scratches, burns and sores. Carefully clean, apply antiseptic cream and a bandage, and in a few days things are all better. Some wounds, however, will not heal—even after many months of highly specialized treatment.
When you have a wound that won’t heal, seek help from the Wound Care Center at UK King’s Daughters. Our state-of-the-art outpatient center is dedicated to providing the most comprehensive and advanced treatment options for the management of problem wounds.
A Team Approach to Treatment
Treatment of chronic wounds requires a broad approach that takes into account all factors of a person’s health:
- age (older people are at higher risk)
- malnourishment (especially protein depletion)
- trace element deficiencies, especially zinc
- vitamin deficiencies, especially vitamin C
- compromised general health
- steroid use
- radiation and chemotherapy
- diabetes
- smoking
- weight loss or obesity
Our wound care team includes experienced professionals who are specialty-certified and credentialed in wound care and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Depending on a patient’s individual needs, the following professionals are available for consultation and treatment:
- physicians
- wound care nurses
- hyperbaric technicians
- physical therapists
- occupational therapists
This team establishes a treatment plan to address each patient’s specific needs. We coordinate care with other professional services including dietitians and diabetic educators to provide total wound care management.
Specialized Care for Serious Wounds
We provide outstanding care for wounds, including:
- diabetic ulcers
- pressure ulcers
- traumatic wounds
- venous insufficiency
- neuropathic ulcers (abnormal state of the nervous system or nerves)
- ischemic ulcers (tissue anemia)
- radiation injuries
- burns
- vasculitis (inflammation of a blood or lymph vessels) and other inflammatory ulcers
- other chronic, non-healing wounds
The Latest Treatment Options
Care for each wound is determined by its own unique characteristics. Once the cause of the wound is determined, our specialists use a variety of advanced clinical treatments, including:
- wound dressings
- debridement (surgical removal of damaged tissue)
- bio-engineered skin grafting
- compression therapy
- lymphedema management (fluid accumulation due to faulty lymphatic drainage)
- growth factor therapy
- non-invasive vascular assessment
- hyperbaric oxygen therapy
Our Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Advancements in chronic wound treatment technology, particularly in the use of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO2) have dramatically improved the resolution rates of the most difficult wounds, and has given significant hope to patients who are at risk of amputations.
HBO2 often closes the mostdifficult wounds, even after many years of traditional wound care.
Simply put, HBO2 is a unique way of delivering large doses of oxygen while inside a hyperbaric chamber that is pressurized to greater than normal barometric pressure, in order to help the body heal. One of the functions oxygen has in the human body is to promote healing. The air we normally breathe contains 21 percent oxygen. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy increases the amount of oxygen to 100 percent delivering it to the body’s tissues, which can be of great benefit to patients with slow or non-healing wounds.
The increased pressure produced in the hyperbaric chamber permits the oxygen you breathe also to be dissolved in the liquid (plasma) part of your blood. This extra dissolved oxygen in the blood plasma permits the delivery of oxygen to tissues in your body in amounts that cannot occur by any other form of oxygen treatment. This increased oxygen promotes the body’s own healing mechanism and helps fight infection.
Specific conditions that may warrant Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy include:
- advanced wound healing
- chronic, refractory osteomyelitis (infectious inflammatory disease of bone)
- gas gangrene (death of tissue due to loss of blood supply)
- gas embolism (obstruction of a blood vessel)
- acute carbon monoxide poisoning
- acute traumatic peripheral ischemia
- necrotizing fasciitis (diseased connective tissue)
- crush injuries and suturing of severed limbs
- acute peripheral arterial insufficiency
- preparation and preservation of compromised skin grafts
- osteoradionecrosis (death of bone) and soft tissue radionecrosis (death of living tissue)
- diabetic wounds that meet specific criteria
- cyanide poisoning
The Wound Care Center at King’s Daughters is the first medical facility in the region to offer comprehensive wound management and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. To find out more about our programs or to schedule an appointment, please contact us.
Wound Care Center
UK King’s Daughters
Medical Plaza A
617 23rd St.
Ashland, KY 41101
Phone: (606) 327-6266
Fax: (606) 327-4063