Via practica 9/2008

TREATMENT OF CHRONIC WOUNDS AND PRESSURE SORES – CASE REPORTS FROM GENERAL PRACTICE

their relatives take care of them, or in senior or nursing houses. Very often patients develop such wounds during their stays in hospitals and a general practitioner has to deal with these after the patients are released from the hospital. General practitioners play a key role in patientoriented primary healthcare and during its complex management (3, 6). They have an opportunity to coordinate medical and social services in the primary community (cooperation with ADOS and other locally operating providers) or provide healthcare independently. Within general practice it is possible to tackle also with complicated chronic cases. The aim is to stabilize chronic patients and improve their quality of life. This leads to satisfaction of patients themselves as well as their family relatives. Care for a dying patient in homecare, where treatment of chronic wounds and pressure sores can be also acute, is a special chapter. The complex treatment of an immobile patient with chronic wounds and pressure sores in homecare is a significant challenge for general practitioners, as the following case histories will show.

Keywords: chronic wound, pressure sore, complex homecare, primary care, general practitioner, case history.