Skin Tears in Thin Fragile Skin

What are Skin Tears?

Skin Tears are acute traumatic injuries involving the separation (flap) of the epidermis/ papillary dermis from the deeper reticular dermis. These most commonly occur in elderly people who have thin, fragile skin. The skin tears usually result from shear force applied to the skin from friction or trauma. Patients have a propensity to have these sometimes - very large wounds - turn into poorly healing, often infected wounds. The adhesive dressings currently used on skin tears in the elderly, typically cause disruption of the wound with inflammation, bleeding, irritation and skin breakdown of the surrounding skin.

The International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP) classifies skin tears into three types: 1) no skin loss with the flap being able to be repositioned; 2) partial skin loss; or 3) total skin loss. The degree of skin loss is directly proportional to the required healing time and the probability of complications including infection and recurrent injury. The major predisposing factor is the weakening of the links between the papillary dermis and reticular dermis. These weak links are related to skin age, which is commonly older than the chronological age. Conditions such as easy bruising, diabetes, liver disease, kidney disease, significantly poor nutrition, and medications (such as steroids, immuno-suppressives, anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants) dramatically increase skin tear probability.

Treatment Strategies for Skin Tears

The best treatment strategy is based on preserving the viability of the flap, protecting the surrounding skin from adhesive irritation, atraumatic dressing changes to both the wound and surrounding skin, longer dressing intervals while being able to monitor signs of infection, and the ability to clean blood and exudate from the wound as needed (up to 2-3 times a day) without disturbing the flap.

The Best Solution for Skin Tears is Miracle Dressing Wound Care System

Unfortunately, there had been no dressing meeting those requirements until our introduction of our transformative technology: Miracle Professional Dressing (MPD). The extensive research, development, inventions, patenting and manufacture of these technologies has produced a dressing with all of the above characteristics. Miracle Professional Dressing is a 21-day stay-in-place dressing on which a health care provider can clean and medicate the wound without changing the dressing. This allows the skin tear wound to heal without disruption while the surrounding skin remains trauma free. MPD is impregnated with Natural Marine Extract. The ingredients of Natural Marine Extract have been shown to improve the speed and quality of healing and improve the resilience of the healed skin. Miracle Dressing falls off on its own after approximately 21 days, which is usually at the point when the wound is healed.