Offloading & Immobilization
Prevent repetitive trauma or stretching of a wound with proper care.
Offloading & Immobilization
Offloading and immobilization is available at Encompass Healthcare and Wound Medicine in West Bloomfield, Michigan in our outpatient office so that you don’t have to go to the hospital.
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Offloading and immobilization are critical in wound healing because they prevent repetitive trauma to the wound or repetitive stretching of a wound. When someone has a wound, repetitive bumping or stretching is one of 5 important reasons wounds won’t heal. The continuous trauma will “undo” whatever healing has taken place and keep the patient in a non-healing situation.
1
Total Contact Casting
A total contact cast allows someone to ambulate (keep moving) and to keep his limb/foot/arm or extremity completely still. So this person has complete freedom to go about his life without worrying about bumping, scraping or opening the wound.
2
Orthotics
Orthotics are another way to immobilize and offload. By design, the patient’s orthotic is meant to control, guide, limit or restrict movement in a given direction. It can also reduce weight bearing forces for a particular purpose, as in the case of someone with a buttock bed sore. In many cases, it reduces pain as well, due to the offloading nature.
3
A specialized offloading bed like the Clinitron® Bed
Some of our patients need complete offloading while sleeping, due to serious, deep bed sores, pressure ulcers or following plastic reconstructive surgery to heal a bed sore. The Clinitron® Air Fluidized Therapy beds provide an ideal healing environment for these types of patients by minimizing pressure and the forces that cause tissue breakdown: pressure, shear, friction, heat, and moisture. This advanced technology provides the highest level of wound care for patients with complex, advanced wounds that are difficult to heal and expensive to manage.
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Another specialized mattress that uses air flow alternating pressure: it uses alternating air pressure to support the body while offloading in a timely manner for bed sore prevention and healing.
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Many of our patients visit us with Nurse Case Managers who are often surprised at the plethora of hospital-level modalities that we offer.