A pressure sore is tissue damage caused by high and prolonged pressure when patients are bedridden for extended periods of time. Ulcers develop in the areas where patients lie on their backs, often over the sacrum or coccyx or on outer ankles – this is referred to as “bedsores.” The affected areas of the body are poorly supplied with blood, and life-threatening complications such as blood poisoning can occur.
Bedsores: life-threatening complications
More than 400,000 people in Germany suffer from a pressure ulcer, known as a bedsore in the medical world. Every year, as many as about 10,000 patients die from this condition. People in need of care, bedridden and chronically ill elderly people or paraplegics are particularly at risk of developing such a painful and dangerous injury. Pressure ulcer comes from Latin and means “lying down on your back.”
Pressure sores are ulcers and necrosis, the death of cells in the skin and mucous membranes as a result of pressure. Immobility, not being able to move, means a great risk. In bedridden patients, decubitus ulcers develop mainly where there is a lot of weight: above the sacrum or coccyx or on outer ankles.
The affected areas of the body are very poorly supplied with blood, and life-threatening complications such as blood poisoning can occur. In a later stage, deeper pressure damage occurs, extending into the musculature. Tissue destruction extending to the bone characterizes stage IV.
High cost
The costs are also alarming: according to the Institute for Innovations in Health Care and Applied Nursing Research, the average cost of treating a pressure ulcer is up to 50,000 euros. The resulting economic damage amounts to 1.5 to 3.0 billion euros per year.
Problem case elderly people
In addition to many research studies, patients who died for the first time in 2000 became the starting point for a retrospective study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs. Fatal bedsores were found in nearly one-third of patients at a Hamburg crematory who died after the age of 60. 11.2 percent of the deceased had these ulcers.
Patients after stroke, demented or malnourished are particularly susceptible to the development of higher-grade decubitus ulcers, according to nutrition experts from the Gesellschaft für Ernährungsmedizin und Diätetik e. V. (Society for Nutritional Medicine and Dietetics).
The study found that 54.1 percent of all higher-grade decubitus ulcers came from nursing homes and only 11.5 percent from hospitals. Those who died at home accounted for only about one-third; moreover, ulcers here tended to be mild.
