Introduction

A proper and detailed wound assessment is an essential part of a wound care professional's evaluation and ongoing treatment plan. When completing an assessment, it is vital to remember that one or more underlying conditions most often cause the wound that you are assessing. These conditions will affect the established goals, treatment plan, prognosis, and patient education. The wound care professional must also consider the patient's anatomical makeup, physiological functioning, and environment while performing a wound assessment.

This course, the fifth in the Wound Care Physiotherapy Programme, gives an overview of the basic principles and steps of a wound care assessment and discusses the greater whole-person approach to this speciality practice.

Aims

This course aims to provide an introduction to wound care assessment.

Outline

This course is made up of videos, reading, forum posts and a final quiz. The course content is split into the following sections:

1. Video One: Basic Wound Assessment - Subjective Assessment
2. Reading Activity: Wound Care Basics: Subjective Assessment
3. Video Two: Basic Wound Assessment - Objective Assessment
4. Reading Activity: Wound Care Basics: Objective Assessment
5. Optional Lab Activity
6. Quiz

Target audience

This course is aimed at Physiotherapy and Physical Therapy clinicians, students and assistants. Other interested professionals such as athletic trainers, occupational therapists, nurses or medical doctors interested in this subject are also invited to participate.