Investigating a Framework for Modeling and Analysis for Wound Progression

Wounds are as unique as a fingerprint. A wound can be a tear, scrape or cut — simply anything that damages the protective layer of skin. Wounds occur anywhere on the body from a small paper cut to a large gash. Because the topology of a wound varies so significantly, current tracing and modeling methods fail to adapt to the changing environment. Similarly, traumatic wounds are a greater challenge to heal without infection due to their nature, size, depth and moisture. Presently, tracing and modeling methods are inaccurate and unreliable for wounds that exceed a certain depth. With any wound, non-invasive, full field methods are necessary to effectively measure and assess the severity of the wound. Due to lack of diagnosis options, wounds are expensive to treat and heal. There are few methodologies that exist to help affect the decision for clinicians regarding wound care, how wounds are evaluated, and how wounds are created. In the U.S., there are an estimated 2.5 million pressure ulcers treated each year in acute care facilities. The epidemiology of pressure wounds result in particular physiological principles that we can use to quantify and determine a baseline wound condition. At the moment, the physician and his experience rather than a standard diagnostic system determines the wound condition. This paper presents methods of quantifying wound progression and their impact thus far on patient care. It also provides open-ended research issues that support the need for a structured, systematic methodology for the modeling and analysis of wound progression. The purpose of this paper is also to disseminate a preliminary epistemology on wound progression and modeling in a quantifiable manner.