Welcome to the Podiatry Arena forums, for communication between foot health professionals about podiatry and related topics.
You are currently viewing our podiatry forum as a guest which gives you limited access to view all podiatry discussions and access our other features. By joining our free global community of Podiatrists and other interested foot health care professionals you will have access to post podiatry topics (answer and ask questions), communicate privately with other members (PM), upload content, view attachments, receive a weekly email update of new discussions, earn CPD points and access many other special features. Registered users do not get displayed the advertisments in posted messages. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our global Podiatry community today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.
Which of the many scales of wound assessment are you all using S(AD), DEPA, University of Texas system (UT), San Antonio Norton, Wagner, Braden, Waterlow risk scalesand the Texas ‘The Foot Risk Classification’.. And have you had experiences with the Vistrack which is a digital, portable, wound progress tracking device and the company Smith & Nephew.
I would be extremely interest in your preferences, opinions, why and the effectiveness of their use in daily practice.
Concise and accurate medical records are essential as the main reference point to vital information of wound size and assessment of healing and the biggest problem in this is the lack of a general universal classification system, (Gripton, 2002), but are mainly specific to a disease for example; diabetes (Edmonds, Foster, 2000)and rheumatoid (Young, der Heijde 1997).
A non-contact wound measurement method by laser scanner and curvature maps is presented. A patient's foot ulcer is scanned by FastSCAN ten times over a three-week period. With the surface's 3D coordinates, curvature maps of the ulcerous area are calculated. Utilizing a specified rim curvature value, the wound edge is detected and processed via cubic spline smoothing, which is qualitatively verified by a photograph. Subsequently, the depth, area and volume of the wound can be calculated. The results indicate that laser scanning followed by curvature analysis might be a potential clinical tool for non-contact measurement of wounds.
Role of wound classification in predicting the outcome of diabetic foot ulcer. J Pak Med Assoc. 2006 Oct;56(10):444-7
Gul A, Basit A, Ali SM, Ahmadani MY, Miyan Z
Quote:
OBJECTIVE: To compare the effectiveness of Wagner and University of Texas (UT) classification systems of diabetic foot ulcers in directing appropriate therapy and possibly predicting outcomes. METHODS: A total of 383 patients with foot ulcer were seen. Details of socio-demographic and clinical profiles of 200 patients were completely available. Patients were assessed and classified into different grades and stages according to Wagner's and UT classification systems. Their duration of healing was recorded. The outcome endpoints were defined as complete healing, major or minor amputations, or expired.
RESULTS: Out of the 200 subjects, 65% were males and 35% were females. Mean age in males was 53.04 +/- 10.33 years and in females was 51.14 +/- 9.94 years. Average duration of treatment in males was 109.68 +/- 82.26 days and in females was 85.10 +/- 61.97 days. Forty five percent of the subjects had neuropathic ulcers. Median healing time increased with increase in Wagner grade and UT grade and stage. The higher the UT grade and stage at the time of presentation, the less the chances of ulcer to heal within the study period.
CONCLUSION: Our study has shown that grading and staging of diabetic foot ulcer affects and predicts the outcome. Amputation rates increase with increase in grade. Addition of stage to grade in UT classification helps further on assessing the severity of wound at the time of presentation and shows better association with the outcome.
Wound assessment scales
Linear Mode
