# What's a "pressure wound"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 11, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655 "2004-10-11T16:05:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/1 "2004-10-11T16:05:59Z")
From the article in USAToday. . . “Reeve was being treated at Northern Westchester Hospital for a pressure wound, a common complication for people living with paralysis.” What’s a pressure wound? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/2 "2004-10-11T16:15:07Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > What’s a pressure wound? It’s more commonly called a [bed sore](http://www.expertlaw.com/library/exparticles/decubitus_ulcers.html). > [@](#): > > A decubitus ulcer is a pressure sore or what is commonly called a “bed sore”. It can range from a very mild pink coloration of the skin, which disappears in a few hours after pressure is relieved on the area, to a very deep wound extending to and sometimes through a bone into internal organs. These ulcers, as well as other wound types, are classified in stages according to the severity of the wound. > > … > > The weight of the person’s body presses on the bone, the bone presses on the tissue and skin that cover it, and the tissue is trapped between the bone structure and bed or wheelchair surface. The tissue begins to decay from lack of blood circulation. This is the basic formation of decubitus ulcer development. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/3 "2004-10-11T17:04:56Z")
Yikes. I didn’t know “bed sores” got so bad. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![PussyCow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/22d042/32.png) [@PussyCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PussyCow)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/4 "2004-10-11T17:11:51Z")
I used to work as a nurse’s aid in a nursing home. There was this one patient who got a VERY bad bed sore. On her calf. It wound up eating into her leg and turning gangrenous (sp?). It was bad - to the bone. But she refused to have it amputated. ??? The nurses would change her dressing everyday. I helped them out once. They take off the bandages - it looked like her leg had been blown up by a grenade. The sore literally went to the bone with tendons completely exposed and pieces of tissue hanging from them. It smelled awful (like rotting flesh) and actually had a bit of a green color (mixed with the red/pink of the inner leg meat). It was straight out of Tales from the Crypt. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/5 "2004-10-11T17:56:54Z")
I would think that these would be common enough so that someone like Reeves would get the necessary attention so that they would be avoided. No? ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/6 "2004-10-11T19:01:42Z")
I just wrote, then, erased a huge rant about the care he received… I wasn’t there. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-pressure-wound/268655/7 "2004-10-11T19:20:55Z")
Reeves was almost certainly getting as much preventive care as possible, **Trunk** , but it’s damned hard to entirely avoid pressure sores over the very long term. There’s only so many ways to distribute the weight, after all, especially sitting up in a wheelchair. And once one’s gotten a little start, it’s awfully difficult to keep pressure off it long enough for it to heal, because putting someone in other positions more often/for longer periods tends to lead to more pressure sores. We rotate our immobile patients every four hours (every two hours for dogs over 60#), and even so, the ones who are immobile for weeks tend to get ulcerations. Christopher Reeves had been spending hours a day sitting up in a wheelchair for close to 10 _years_. It would be shocking if he didn’t have a pressure sore.