Wound Care Essentials: Practice Principles

Wound Care Essentials: Practice Principles  (soft cover) promises to provide evidence-based guidance on wound management and practical advice for all clinicians. For a book of this size and scope, the findings and material are rather impressive. The book is divided into 2 sections—Wound Care Concepts and Wound Classifications and Management Strategies. The information presented is up to date, representing the state of the art of wound care at the time of publication. The author/editors are well known wound care specialists and are complemented by an additional 31 contributing experts. Chapters are well organized and include listed objectives, practice points that summarize main points within a section, and test questions at the end of each chapter that correlate with the objectives. The color highlighted practice points are very pertinent. This easy to read book is packed with basic wound care principles and allows the reader to almost completely avoid the need to highlight the text on their own.

Less traditional yet interesting chapters include, Legal Aspects of Wound Care; Regulation and Wound Care; Seating, Positioning and Support Surfaces; and Wound Care: Where We Were, Where We Are, Where We’re Going. The chapter on seating and support surfaces is one of the most concise and practical discussions on this problem presented in wound care literature.

The presentation of the material is valuable to the physicians and nurses who provide wound care services. There is some redundancy of certain materials within chapters, but no more than in other similar texts. Featured algorithms, flowcharts, and checklists are easy to understand and user-friendly. The preparation and quality of these tools are 2 of the greatest strengths this book has to offer in comparison to other texts on the market.

Significant emphasis is placed on the control of nutritional, pain, and other factors that affect wound healing and overall quality of life. There is a section on “Red Flags in Documentation,” which could lead to costly and time-consuming legal disputes when present in the medical record. These should be discussed with all personnel caring for the patient or those who are documenting in the medical record.

Overall, the book is excellent but there are a few shortcomings, which is to be expected in a text of this size. Special situation topics, such as HIV/AIDS population, infectious and noninfectious skin disorders, neoplastic disorders, sickle cell ulcers, calciphylaxis, and radiation necrosis are only covered superficially and would require more comprehensive coverage to gain an in-depth understanding. Adjunctive treatments, such as physical therapy modalities, hyperbaric oxygen, negative pressure therapy, normothermic or ultraviolet light (UV) therapy, growth factors, platelet-rich plasma, infrared therapy, and other advanced therapeutics when covered, are touched upon only briefly.

One of the most user-friendly books on the topic of wound care available, this is an excellent reference for the novice and the experienced practitioner. Despite having multiple authors, the quality of this text is consistent, informative, and an exceptional addition to the rapidly evolving discipline of wound care. This text will serve as an invaluable resource for anyone providing wound care services. This reviewer highly recommends Wound Care Essentials: Practice Principles for your personal library and wound care practice.

Brian F. McCrary, DO, MPH
Commander, Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Care Center
David Grant Medical Center
Travis Air Force Base, California