PT's role in burn victim rehabilitation and wound care

[SMuller06]

Hi all,

I'm a first year PT student, and I am just looking at my options following graduation. I am very interested in working in a burn unit or acute care. I was wondering if any of y'all had any insight on the role that PTs play in the rehabiliation of burn victims. Also, do physical therapists concern themselves with wound care within inpatient settings, or is this type of care done primarily by nurses/doctors?

Thanks.

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[MinnDasota]

PTs role with burn victims are usually limited to burn care units in the hospital. I haven't really seen PTs working with burn care out side of this. In the inpatient units, the MDs/PAs/and nurses usually deal with most of the wound care (PTs can occasionally be involved, especially with bed sores, etc). In PT school, we were taught wound care and a few in my class did clinicals in this setting. However, throughout my clinicals, I never had to deal with wounds except for redressing wounds. You may also encounter wound care when working with amputees (stump wrapping) and other vascular injuries.

 

[soccer31]

Hi all,

I'm a first year PT student, and I am just looking at my options following graduation. I am very interested in working in a burn unit or acute care. I was wondering if any of y'all had any insight on the role that PTs play in the rehabiliation of burn victims. Also, do physical therapists concern themselves with wound care within inpatient settings, or is this type of care done primarily by nurses/doctors?

Thanks.

When I was working as a rehab aide spring of 09 at the county hospital they had me rotating through different units. So I spent 2 weeks at their Burn Unit, which is the biggest one in the state and have patients from all over it going there. In that setting, the PT was the one who did the majority of the wound care. The NP would help every now and then if the case load was full. Other things that the PT did was primarily PROM, bed positioning to avoid bed sores, and patient education.

 

[PTtoBe]

Hi all,

I'm a first year PT student, and I am just looking at my options following graduation. I am very interested in working in a burn unit or acute care. I was wondering if any of y'all had any insight on the role that PTs play in the rehabiliation of burn victims. Also, do physical therapists concern themselves with wound care within inpatient settings, or is this type of care done primarily by nurses/doctors?

Thanks.

One of the major roles of PT in rehabbing burn victims is to maintain ROM over the affected joints, since as skin grows back it can form this sort of web over an inactive joint, preventing any motion at all. If this happens, then it will need to be surgically cut to release the joint, but if PT can keep the joint moving often during the healing process there's less of a chance of this happening.

They also pretty much need to get the patient onto their feet and walking immediately once they enter rehab. With skin growing quickly back, it's very important that the patient keeps their body going through normal motion to make sure there are limited secondary problems resulting from the healing process.