Sacral decubitus after cervical spine injury: a case report and suggestions for avoiding such wounds

Sacral decubitus ulcers after cervical spine injuries are particularly debilitating wounds. An illustrative case is presented here and strategies are proposed that may help reduce the incidence of this type of wound. These include early involvement in the patient's care by a wound prevention specialist and the incorporation of a cholera cot design into the spinal transport board with a hole to completely offload the sacral tissue and permit the drainage of stool. Because intermittent visual inspection of skin is probably inadequate to detect the first sign of impending complications, there is a need for technology to objectively assess the status of skin's integrity so a computer program could automatically adjust the pressure on the patient's skin and alert the doctor. Sophisticated equipment that measures mattress pressure on skin is now widely available; sensors of this type could be situated on top of a quilt of miniature air bags (ie, smart cubes) so that individual computer-controlled areas of the quilt could be deflated to offload pressure as required. In the future, probes capable of measuring CO2 production, electrical resistance, or even polarization spectroscopy might be interspersed among the cubes so that ongoing skin viability and integrity could also be monitored. Finally, if the middle model, which proposes that pressure damage starts deep in the middle of the tissue overlying the sacrum before spreading to the skin, proves to be correct and the ground zero for some decubitus really is in the sacral fat, then even more advanced monitoring will be required such as implantable biosensors, and treatment plans might require hyperbaric oxygen or even preemptive liposuction of necrotic fat.