Recumbency in patients can be challenging in veterinary practice, and further understanding of the care that these dependent patients require can be potentially further improved. Patients are seen for complex disease processes and the advances in veterinary medicine have allowed for impressive intensive care to be achieved, and the ability for gold standard nursing care which demands further research into this field. To enable care to be of the highest standard, and to ensure recumbent patients nursing care is maintained to the gold standard while hospitalised, informed, knowledgeable and trained registered veterinary nurses (RVNs) should be advised on the appropriate nursing interventions to be applied to promote quicker recovery from disease. Maintaining patent respiratory function is a necessity with recumbent patients to facilitate recovery from disease processes.
There are various techniques of debridement in veterinary practice. Knowledge of these techniques is essential to choose the ideal method or combination of methods required to successfully manage a wound. This article gives an overview of the main techniques available in veterinary practice that may aid wound management for veterinary nurses.
Excessive exudate can be challenging to manage in veterinary practice as a wound's ideal healing environment can be difficult to establish. Knowledge of how to prepare a wound and select a suitable dressing to cope with exudate from a wound is essential to encourage faster wound healing and to provide a return to normality for patients.
Open wound management in veterinary practice is commonplace, with the aim to provide the optimum wound condition to help aid healing and closure of the wound. There are four main principles of wound management needed to provide a healing environment. There needs to be identification and control of any infection and contamination, and wound necrosis needs to be controlled, any ongoing deterioration in the wound controlled and acted on and any further damage to the wound needs to be prevented. This article looks at lavage, one of the most important firstline methods in controlling infection and discusses how it is performed.
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