Pressure Ulcer Prevention Repositioning

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Pressure Ulcer Prevention Repositioning
Introduction
Pressure ulcers are one of the most common problems health care facilities often face which causes pain and discomfort for the patient, cost effective to manage and impacts negatively on the hospital (Pieper, Langemo, & Cuddigan, 2009; Padula et al., 2011). The development of pressure ulcers occur when there is injury to the skin or tissue usually over bony prominences such as the coccyx, sacrum or heels from the increase of pressure and shear. This injury will compromise blood flow and result in ischemia due to lack of oxygen being delivered (Gyawali et al., 2011). Patients such as those who are critically ill or bed bounded are at high risk of developing pressure ulcers (O'Brien et al., 2014).
Pressure ulcers are considered an adverse event in health care and guidelines are set to help health care professionals prevent this from occurring. Penalties have been placed as an incentive to help prevent hospital-acquired pressure ulcers (Cantrell, 2013). The most common method used to reduce the risk of pressure ulcers are two hourly repositioning (REF). However, there is insufficient evidence regarding the frequency of repositioning and research regarding the purpose of turning is very limited. The following review will discuss the research found for the frequency of repositioning patients and supportive surfaces used to reduce the risk of the development of pressure ulcers.

Methodology
In gathering articles for this review, numerous methods were used to narrow journal articles that were relevant to nursing. A search was conducted on EBSCO HOST for key terms such as ________. This was narrowed down to articles which were between 2009 and 2014, plus articles which had full text...

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...tioning component” and not used in isolation (Moore, Z., Haynes, J., & Callaghan, R. (2014); Bergquist-Beringer, S., Dong, L., He, J., & Dunton, N. (2013).

Conclusion
Pressure ulcers remain a major health problem for patients in all health care setting but may gaps still remain in the understanding and prevention. Studies indicate that comprehensive prevention techniques such as repositioning and pressure relieving aids have slightly reduced incident rates but areas of high skin-bed interface pressures still remain in jeopardy. By preventing pressure ulcers, it would reduce health cost and patient comfort will be increased. Additional research is needed to determine the most appropriate preventative responses, thus, more research should be conducted in regards to the frequency of turning plus the use of pressure releasing equipment. (change and improve outcomes)

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