Nutrition and lifestyle considerations

Nutrition and lifestyle considerations
This session discusses the impact of nutrition and lifestyle behaviours on wound healing. It highlights common risk factors to healing and their influence on the intricate world of improving skin healing prospects whilst encouraging constructive patient choice.

It presents an overview of the physiology of wound healing and the foundations to preserving skin integrity.

The content will be of benefit to any health, therapy or care worker across any care setting.

Learning outcomes
The learning outcomes and content of the session have been developed for level 4 study.

By the end of the session you should be able to:

• name and describe the main phases of wound healing
• identify the main foundations to healing skin
• describe what lifestyle behaviours are risk factors to healing wounded skin and why they are significant
• describe the key components of a nutritional assessment and how to fortify the diets of people with wounds
• define malnutrition and understand the predisposing risk factors to this
• recall the impact of smoking and alcohol on healing skin and identify mechanisms to support individuals
• recognise the importance of guidance such as the World Health Organization (WHO) (2020) guidance on physical activity and take action to improve this within your patient demographic 
• value the importance of good communication and interpersonal skills within the multidisciplinary team as well as with your patients and their relatives