Role of Low-Cost Negative Pressure Dressing in the Management of Sacral Pressure Injuries and its Impact on Functional Recovery in Neuro-rehabilitation: A Retrospective Case Series.

Introduction: Pressure injuries (PIs) continue to remain one of the most common and debilitating complications seen adding to the financial burden of the patients and caregivers. The available VAC (vacuum assisted closure) systems are expensive. In our case series we have applied low-cost negative pressure dressing (NPD) for sacral pressure injuries in five patients along with individualised rehabilitation protocol which resulted in accelerated healing of their PIs and improved functional outcome.

Materials and methods: Five patients having pressure injuries of Grade IV according to NPIAP classification in whom we applied NPD were included. Pressure ulcer scale for healing (PUSH), reduction of surface area of the wounds were recorded on a weekly basis. FIM (Functional independence measure) score of the patients were evaluated at admission and at discharge. Healing rate by means of PUSH score and surface area were recorded.

Results: Improvement in FIM score from the time of admission till at discharge was calculated to be 42.86% with a standard deviation of 16.84. Healing rate by means of PUSH score was the highest for patient C at 3.57% per week and in terms of surface area for patient C at 5.44% per week.

Conclusion: Low-cost negative pressure device has been observed to be a safe and effective method of managing PIs. It prevents further infection and helps to optimise and accelerate healing in PIs with the additional advantage of being cost effective and easy to apply.