Are wet-to-dry dressings substandard for optimal wound care?
At a recent seminar I attended, we were told wet-to-dry dressings are considered substandard for optimal wound care. Is this true? Yes, the majority of wound care experts consider wet-to-dry dressings an unacceptable choice. The reason: Wet-to-dry dressings do not support the theory of moist wound healing. Since the 1960s, research has shown that moist wound healing decreases wound pain and cell death, increases and encourages new cell growth, and results in wound closure two times faster. Wet-to-dry dressings, on the other hand, do not offer a continuous moist wound bed and therefore allow the wound to dry out between dressing changes. When tissues in a wound bed dry out, the result is tissue death. Tissue death does not support healing. Many healthcare professionals will say, “But I do not let it dry out—I moisten the gauze before I remove it.” However, if the physician’s order were for “wet-to-dry,” moistening the dried gauze prior to removal would be considered “not following physi
