Critical Analyses for a Patient with Post-Operative Wound

Running Head: CRITICAL ANALYSES FOR A PATIENT WITH POST-OPERATIVE WOUND 1
CRITICAL ANALYSES FOR A PATIENT WITH POST-OPERATIVE WOUND
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CRITICAL ANALYSES FOR A PATIENT WITH POST-OPERATIVE WOUND 2
Across all the spectrums of health setting, wounds are very common. Wounds have a
range of presentation including surgical or traumatic wounds to chronic wounds like leg wounds
and diabetic foot ulcers. The less common wounds include pyoderma, vasculitis ulcers,
calciphylaxis, and necrotizing fasciitis. With any kind of wound, understanding the aetiology is
very important because it not only enables the victim to come up with an appropriate wound
management plan but also to manage all the comorbidities associated with wound development
or limiting the healing potential of the wound (Scott, et al., 2015). There are many clues which
are used to determine the healing stage of a wound or whether a wound is healing or has been
infected. Therefore, wound assessment must be done in a holistic way incorporating the key
aspects of patient health status and that of the wound for the best possible outcome. This paper
analyzes and discusses the underlying pathophysiology of a patient’s post-operative wound
status.
From the examination, there are some clues related to the patients wound to be used in
determining the status of the wound. The first clue is the island film dressing along with the
incision and which is wet from a serious exudate output. Also, the wound has some dehiscence
along the suture line. Finally, the skin surrounding the wound is dark pink, warm and painful
(Qiao, Feng, Zhao, Yan, Zhang & Zhao, 2015).
Although it’s normal for the skin which surrounds a wound to feel somehow warm, the
skin around Mrs. Gina Bacci’s incision has been presented to go beyond the normal warmth of a
healing wound. This is because it felt very warm to touch and did not show signs of cooling
despite the fact that the patient had some days after her operation. From a medical point of view,
that was an indication that her body had mounted campaigns against an infection which had
attacked the wound. The common infections which affect wounds are as a result of bacteria,

CRITICAL ANALYSES FOR A PATIENT WITH POST-OPERATIVE WOUND 3
fungi, and virus (Scott & Miller, 2015). Mainly, the heat around the incision had been caused by
the release of vasoactive chemicals to increase blood flow to the incision area. In addition to that,
the victim’s immune system had generated a lot of heat by sending lymphocytes to generate
antibodies to destroy the pathogens and phagocytes and ingest the dead bacteria (Bester & Van
Deventer, 2015).
According to the examination report, the wound had some dehiscence. Wound
dehiscence is a surgical complication characterized by wound rupture along the surgical incision.
Primarily, wound dehiscence is caused by sub-acute infections resulting from imperfect or
inadequate aseptic techniques. The patient’s coated sutures such as vicryl had broken down at a
rate corresponding with the tissue healing of the wound but hastened by pathogens such as
bacteria and fungi (Bittner, Shank, Woodson & Martyn, 2015).
The examination has also pointed out that Mrs. Gina Bacci was experiencing increasing
and continual pain from the wound. Generally, a patient is said to be healing well if the pain on
the surgery or an injury wound is subsiding. Although medication to reduce pain is required in
the first few days, the patient continues to reduce the usage of the painkiller drugs and finally
discontinue them over time. However, the continual and increasing pain experienced by Mrs.
Gina Bacci is a sign of wound infection (Van Waes, et al., 2016). Mainly, the pain was caused by
skin damage, blood vessel injuries, ischemia and other pathogen related to infections. These
factors had led to hypoxia which impaired the healing process of the wound and increased
infection rates. For instance, the skin damage decreased tissue oxygen which in turn reduced the
rate of leucocyte production giving bacteria and other pathogens an opportunity to colonize the
wound.