An Easy Guide to Outpatient Burn Rehabilitation

Hypertrophic Scarring

[1 min. 13 sec./762K QuickTime movie] *

"Harry is an example of a matured scar. By matured, I mean that it's no longer metabolically active. He's been through the phase that Chris is at, where his scars were purple and dark, and from there he faded out into what you see here. His scars are no longer red or raised or rigid. While he has got evidence of where the grafting was, he no longer has that very hard skin. His skin has become very pliable, it moves quite well with motion."

"When I push on it, he no longer blanches and when he exercises and stretches that skin, it no longer blanches. When a scar reaches this stage, it no longer requires the intervention we talked about: the positioning, the splinting, and the exercise."

"Unfortunately, even though it's a matured scar, there's still some precautions he'll have to take long-term. Harry doesn't sweat from the areas that have been grafted, so to compensate he sweats from other areas in his body. And in doing that, he runs a higher risk of heat stroke and dehydration when he's outside in the heat, so he needs to drink lots of fluids and he always needs to protect his skin from the sun using a sunscreen of 15 or higher."

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[ [ An Easy Guide to Outpatient Burn Rehabilitation: Scar Control ]

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