A Quantitative Method for Monitoring Wound Healing

Assessment and monitoring of chronic wounds is primarily based on visual inspection by medical professionals. The method is subjective and its reliability depends on the assessment criteria of the evaluator. This may cause problems in articular at home care where caretakers are not usually wound care specialists. Wound dressings have to be removed for each assessment which disturbs the wound healing process. Additionally this increases both workload and cost, as the wound dressings are often changed without medical necessity. Our research group has developed a quantitative method for evaluation and monitoring of the wound healing process. The method is based on differences in electrical conductivity of tissue types and is addressed using the bioimpedance measurement. The results indicate that the method is a potential tool for evaluating the status of a wound.