Cottage staff attends symposium
Local health care experts at the Galesburg Cottage Wound Healing Center recently returned from a symposium in Orlando, Fla. They were briefed by internationally recognized specialists and consulted with peers from around the country on new treatment options and research that may bring additional advances in the care of chronic wounds.
Dr. Gregory Schierer, medical director of WHC, and Marilou Johnson, clinical nurse manager, attended the conference, which was sponsored by National Healing Corporation.
Dr. Omaida C. Velazquez, director of the vascular laboratory at the University of Miami Hospital, discussed research under way to examine hyperbaric oxygen therapy’s potential to mobilize endothelial progenitor cells that play a central role in wound healing.
The center offers hyperbaric oxygen therapy that surrounds the patient with 100 percent oxygen at higher than normal atmospheric pressure to increase the amount of oxygen in the patient’s blood. In the case of wounds, this allows red blood cells to pass more easily through the plasma into the wound to heal it from the inside out.
Annabele Barber, M.D., F.A.C.S. from the Department of Surgery at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, told participants about new connections being discovered between nutrition and wounds. Diabetes and obesity can often be underlying conditions that delay wound healing.
Cottage’s Wound Healing Center offers disease management as well as hospital-based outpatient wound care.