Pressure Sore Prevention Tips

Pressure sore prevention may be one of the most overlooked routines to manage … but it shouldn’t be

 

Online Exclusive posted Monday, March 13, 2017 – 10:15am

When you have difficulty moving, and sensation that is impaired or absent, you are at a high risk to damage your skin. You may not even realize it is happening. These are often called bed sores, but they can happen while sitting in your wheelchair, or even from your orthoses or shoes.

When your muscles and nerves are working at 100%, you move your body frequently without thinking about it and often not noticing. After an injury to your spinal cord, you have to make an effort to make these extra shifts. If you’re in bed, you have to roll side to side every two hours.

If you are in a powered wheelchair, you may have a tilt or recline function that can help. Here is a video to show how to do pressure relief in a manual wheelchair: https://youtu.be/f7NL3HOmCmQ

 

 

Yes, often pressure is pushing in on your skin. However, you can have the best pressure relieving cushion or mattress they make, but you still have to relieve the pressure. This is because your bones pushing out on the skin.

It is important to look at your skin DAILY. Preferably check twice; once in the morning to see if the bed left any marks. Then once in the evening to see if the chair or your clothes caused redness.

Remember if you do any sports/adventures/exercise to check your skin after that as well. It’s not only very important to treat these early, but it’s important to find the cause of the pressure. This way you can fix it and have more fun when your skin is healthy. Here is a short video about pressure sores: http://youtu.be/bhlrAuXRiTs

 

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