Nutrition and Wound Care

The term ‘wound’ can represent a wide range of injuries –from a laparoscopic incision to a large surgical scar, a smallvenous ulcer to the chronic exudative pressure ulcer, an extensivefull-thickness burn to an open abdominal wound. Woundtype and size impact on the potential rate of healing, which isalso influenced by physiological variables. The wide variationin wound presentation makes it difficult to generalize themetabolic response and nutritional needs of wound healing.This overview will address nutrition in the context of acute orchronic (slow-healing) wounds.