Pressure Ulcers: A Case Study

INTRODUCTION

Pressure ulcers are a serious and common problem for older individuals, affecting nearly 1 million adults in the United States. As the population ages, pressure ulcers will remain as a major health care problem. Generally, a pressure ulcer can be defined as any injury caused by unrelieved pressure that results in damage to underlying soft tissue when the tissue is compressed between a bony prominence and external surface over an extended period of time.

With aging, local blood supply to the skin reduces, epithelial layers flatten and thin, subcutaneous fat decreases, and collagen fibers lose elasticity. These changes in aging skin and the resultant dropped easiness to hypoxia may develop pressure ulcer growth in older persons. As pressure is the main physiologic factor that leads to soft-tissue damage, the term pressure ulcer is most

When we spent a lot of times on a chair or in bed, we may slide down or pulled back by someone else. But when the sliding movement occur the layer of the skin also slide over each other even the underlying tissue. These movements contribute in formation of pressure ulcer. According to (The Multiple Sclerosis Society, 2015), they state that transferring the patient also contribute in the formation of pressure ulcer. Moving from a bed to a chair, for example, can also shear the skin and cause damage.

The damage toward the blood vessel disrupts the flow of the blood and the tissue are damaged and then undergo necrosis. The oxygen and nutrients are carried in the blood vessel are essential to keep the tissue healthy.

Pressure ulcer do not occur to people with good flexibility because our body normally makes a lot of movements that stop the pressure from developing on any part of their body. Take an example, when we are sleeping we may think that we do not move but eventually we change our position a lot of times in a