Understanding Chronic Wounds

When Wounds Don't Heal

Every year, more than $15 billion are spent treating chronic wounds. Each year, the figure grows steadily, rising by 15 percent annually as an aging population develops more chronic diseases associated with non-healing wounds.

Non-healing wound cases can exact a toll on patients far beyond the pain and discomfort of the wound. They can cause patients to lose their mobility, which may lead to a decline in general health and emotional well being. Patients often become disabled, unable to work and dependant on care from their families.

Chronic wounds, sometimes caused by trauma in accidents and falls, are often associated with underlying conditions such as diabetes, clogging of the arteries and diseases of the veins. Eighty-six thousand amputations each year are the result of foot ulcers that plague one out of every seven people with diabetes.

Wounds that won’t heal are often signs of larger and more complicated problems. Physicians and nurses in our communities need to be able to call on expertise they can trust. That’s what the Johns Hopkins Wound Healing Center is all about.

As a major component of one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers, the Johns Hopkins Wound Healing Center participates in specialized wound-care studies and assures that its physicians and nurses have access to the latest in clinical research and practice.