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.
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.
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.
Many of our patients visit us with Nurse Case Managers who are often surprised at the plethora of hospital-level modalities that we offer.