Wounds International

Wounds International conference is being held in February 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa. This conference is focused on promoting wound care on an international level, focusing on improving, informing, and educating. For more information visit http://www.woundsinternational.com/

September 2010 Issue--Diabetes & Foot Care

Check out the latest issue of the International Journal of Lower Extremity Wounds this month's topic is Diabetes and Foot Care paying close attention to emerging trends and epidemiology in India. Statistics surrounding both diabetes and amputations is staggering, as Vijay Shukla and Raj Mani state in their article, "Emerging Trends in Diabetic Foot Ulcer Management in India," there are nearly 50 million diabetics in India alone and "worldwide, more than a million amputations are performed each year as a consequence to diabetes, which means that a lower limb is lost to diabetes somewhere in the world every 30 seconds." Read more of this article and the rest of the issue at http://ijl.sagepub.com/.

Shukla V., Mani R. Emerging Trends in Diabetic Foot Ulcer Management in India. Int J Lower Extrem Wounds. 2010; 9(3):111-112.

Management of the Diabetic Foot

Brief announcement about courses being held on the Management of the Diabetic Foot in Pisa, Italy. For further information please see their website, http://www.diabeticfootcourses.org/.

Longlasting Oil Spill Effects?

We are giving much due consideration to the likely effects of the world running out of oil. What would be the effects on the ways in which we develop essential health care products? Compression garments that are vital to manage venous disease may need totally different manufacturing processes. These thoughts began rolling around in my mind as I sat in a coffee shop in downtown Manhattan yesterday. There is a great deal more to learn from the terrible oil sill along the Gulf of Mexico.

Raj Mani
Editor-in-Chief
IJLEW

Herbs and Wound Care

Why are herbal cures rare in wound healing? There are some reports of products well tried and rested--don't get me wrong. The main complications in most wounds are lack of blood flow, infection, and edema. Edema makes wounds more painful, it comes in the way of blood flow and oxygen supply to the wounds. And of course it makes walking and standing more tedious.

Simple techniques help to maintain edema. Doctors prescribe water tablets too. Much is understood in the physiology, so why don't we have simple herbal solutions? Of course they need to be safe and effective. Uncomplicated experiments can help to establish these goals. We need Herbal Pharmacologists in the wound healing lab. And given the knowledge of local herbs in most countries, interested Pharmacologists could give us cheap and effective solutions to a common, but difficult problem to resolve.

Plants have evolved over many millenia withstanding varied and even harsh environments. In doing so, their genetic programming is likely to have altered its code and ability to survive. We should look to nature while gazing through the window of the lab.

Raj Mani
Editor-in-Chief
IJLEW

First IJLEW Post

The weather for the greater part of this last weekend was simply perfect: sunny throughout, a gentle breeze that sprang up when the afternoon sun was turned a touch hot. Lots of spring blossoms amidst a few fading winter blooms. Who now remembers the last winter I wandered, pounding steadily along the hardened mud tracks in the nearby woods? Why think of the winter on such a beautiful day? Well simply because I had been pondering how the global finanical crisis may affect wound management.

Will reimbursement of dressing and devices be affected? Will industry be bolder about supporting good research? And how will wound care be helped by new legislation concerning healthcare in the US? I find more variables in all this than I can count and run at the same time. But it's at such times that runners (and wound healers) have to find fresh wind and with it motivation. The next issue of IJLEW will focus on the Diabetic Foot, related complications, and problems in India where the predicted increase in diabetes is logarithmic!

Raj Mani
Editor