Burn injuries take a toll on a lot of lives each year. However, you can reduce the risks by being alert and vigilant.
Burn injuries are painful and often leave scars on a patient. In developing countries, these accidents usually take a peak during the winter seasons. It is because, during winters, people burn coals and other flammables to protect themself from the chilling weather. However, burn injuries can affect anyone in any age group, and children and adults both are susceptible to burn injuries.
The most susceptible people for burn injuries include:
- Children who are below six years of age.
- Toddlers and infants.
- Infant scalding is common due to hot liquids like soups and tea.
- Toddler scaldings occur when heating equipment is left on the floor and other low-lying surfaces.
The advancement in medical science has made the treatment less painful. However, none of the technologies can tackle the initial pain and trauma that a patient goes through. Therefore, prevention of burns is essential to reduce the cases of burn accidents. By collaborative approach and proper awareness, it is possible to control the cases.
How to prevent burn injuries?
Burn cases mostly rise during the winter season. During this season, most low-income households burn coal and wood to keep their home warm. In addition, most people prefer consuming warm to hot food, which might result in accidental burns. If you have a kid at your home, you need to be vigilant during the winter season. Kids may accidentally touch the hot objects, resulting in wounds and burn scars.
Some areas that need special attention during winters include:
- You must not keep hotplates on low surfaces.
- If you have a toddler at home, they may touch the hotplate lying on the ground.
- If you have an electric kettle at your home, you must keep it away from your child. Your child may overturn the kettle on themselves.
- If you use a heater, try to put it away from your child’s reach. Monitor your child carefully while using an electric heater or blower.
- Educate your child about the self-care techniques to prevent burns.
These tips can prevent burn risks up to some extent. However, if you want to know about safety for burns techniques in detail, you can contact Amish Hospital.
Care for burn injuries
Burn injuries take time to heal, and you must not expect an exceptional result overnight. If you have developed significant burn injuries, you have to spend a long time in a hospital. Moreover, you have to care for the injury after getting discharged from the hospital. Applying prescriptive ointments and other medications can prevent infection and treat scars.
Burn scar treatment is essential to restore the natural appearance of the body. If you have sustained burn injuries, you must visit a nearby hospital immediately. A delay in the treatment may worsen your condition.
It is essential to visit a trained health care professional for the treatment of burns. In addition, however, you must be aware of the self-care tips for minor burns. In addition, your alertness and knowledge of burn care will help in the prevention of burns.
Keep it covered
Keeping your wounds open may hamper the treatment process. Therefore, it is essential to cover the injuries at the earliest. Moreover, you have to maintain hygiene and keep it clean. If you leave the burn injury uncovered, it may develop an infection after coming in contact with airborne germs.
Some factors may affect your healing process, and those include physical and temperature damages. For example, physical damages occur when a dressing is removed from a wound, whereas removing the dressing for warming up the wounds leads to temperature damage. Both impairments affect the treatment of burns.
Due to medical advancement, doctors have developed a new form of burn dressing. After applying this dressing to the burn injuries, you do not have to remove it. Instead, the healing process takes place underneath the bandage. When the wound heals completely, the dressing flakes away. The new bandages heal minor injuries and effectively manage the pain. You can consider these bandages as the best treatment for burn scars.
After-care for burns
Your recovery journey does not end with the healing of the burn injuries. It is just halfway through the process. Once the bandage is removed, you must take all essential precautions. It is vital to follow burn safety and protect yourself from future mishappenings. The repairing of your skin surface does not mean that the underneath tissue has also healed. Even after removing the bandage, the tissues underneath your skin do not heal entirely. They may have gaps, and it can take up to a year to fill the gaps between the uneven tissues.
The after-care steps are essential for complete skin and tissue repair. If you want your tissues to heal entirely, you must avoid the sun. If avoiding the sun rays does not suit you, you can apply a sunblock with high SPF before going out. Moreover, you must include a good quality moisturiser in your skincare routine. After applying the moisturiser, rub it properly on your skin. Gentle skin massages help remodel the tissues underneath your scars.
Burn dressing innovation
Burn injuries take time to heal, and the treatment process is slow and painful. However, a healthcare professional has to invest their physical and emotional energy to treat burn patients. Moreover, taking care of severely burned patients is a physically demanding process. Therefore, to tackle the issues in burn care, healthcare professionals have innovated an advanced way to address burn dressings.
Taking care of burn injuries is a long term process. Many times, a patient’s emotional and physical trauma gets transmitted to a healthcare professional. In earlier days, a burn patient had to undergo wound dressing regularly. It used to give intense pain to the patients. Moreover, the process also hampered the healing process because it used to strip away the new tissues while changing the dressing.
With the advancement in burn dressings, the patients have gotten relief. Now, they don’t have to change their dressing every day. Moreover, the wounds are cleaned under the influence of anaesthesia, and then intelligent dressing is applied to the injury. As a result, the scars heal underneath the bandages, and as mentioned above, the dressing flakes off once it is healed entirely. Thus, the technological innovations in burn dressings have given a painless treatment experience to burn patients.