Pre-Tibial Lacerations Common Among the Elderly Population: Implications in Caring for Open Wounds

When caring for an aging parent, there are many injuries that may arise. For senior adults who are relatively mobile, the risk for injury is far greater as gait becomes unstable and as environment and surroundings may begin to become unfamiliar. As an adult child, it is important to become familiar with not only the major health risks, such as that involve with brittle bones and hip injuries, but also relatively minor injuries such as a pre-tibial open wound or laceration.

Pre-tibial lacerations have become increasingly more common among senior adults in the last decade. As medicine has advanced, many senior adults are continuing to be mobile later in life and, as a result, are placing their lower extremity at greater risk for open wounds. With these wounds comes a greater risk for infection and secondary health complications and, for this reason, it is important to not self-treat injuries to the lower extremity.

When your parent sustains any type of pre-tibial injury, it will be important to seek medical attention no matter how minor that injury may appear. In many cases, the injury will occur to the frontal part of the leg and is often the result of bumping the leg on a table or chair or simply falling down. While cleaning the wound and applying an anti-bacterial ointment is important, your parent may require additional treatment including antibiotics and even tetanus shot.

Because senior adults struggle with complications involving the cardiovascular system, what may appear as a relatively minor pre-tibial laceration may soon become a very complex health condition. When blood flow is not managed normally to the area where injury occurred, oxygen is not reaching the damaged tissue and healing is then delayed. For this reason, a physician will need to closely monitor your parent's injury.

In addition to managing infection and other secondary health complications, your parent may be experiencing some pain in response to the open wound of the lower leg. Because many senior adults tend to with hold complaints of pain, it will be important that a physician address pain management as part of your parent's office visit.

Minor open wound injuries are common in our aging population. For many senior adults, a minor open wound most often occurs in the lower leg and is usually associated with an accident when walking. If your parent has sustained an injury in the tibial area, consult a medical professional to determine what antibiotics and pain management may need to be used to supplement any home self-treatment your parent may consider.