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A pressure sore (or bed sore) is an injury to the skin and tissue under it. Sitting or lying in the same position will begin to cut off the flow of blood to that area, blocking oxygen and vital nutrients from maintaining healthy tissue. When the tissue becomes starved to too long a period of time it begin to die and a pressure sore starts to form.
Pressure sores will also be referred to as pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers. Damage from a pressure sore will range from slight discoloration of the skin to open sores that go all the way to the bone (severe).
The affected area may feel warmer than the surrounding tissue. In light-skinned people, the discoloration may appear as dark purple or red. In darker-skinned people, the discoloration will appear darker than the surrounding tissue.
A pressure sore is serious. It must not be ignored. With proper treatment, most pressure sores will heal.
A pressure sore is any redness or break in the skin caused by too much pressure on your skin for too long a period of time. The pressure prevents blood from getting to your skin so the skin dies. Normally the nerves send messages of pain or feelings of discomfort to your brain to let you know that you need to change position, but damage to your spinal cord keeps these messages from reaching your brain.
You may need to learn new ways to change your position to prevent too much pressure. Pressure sores can occur, for example, when you sit or lie in one position too long. Shearing is also a kind of pressure injury. It happens when the skin moves one way and the bone underneath it moves another way. An example of this is if you slouch when you sit.
Another type of injury, an abrasion, can occur when pulling yourself across a surface instead of lifting. This is an example of a friction injury. In addition, short exposure to high pressure, such as a bump or fall, may cause damage to the skin that may not show up right away.
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