Burn Unit Terminology

There's a lot of jargon that floats around the Burn Unit. Some of it inevitably creeps into your vocabulary during your in-patient stay and it's far easier to use the jargon than to explain it. here are the definitions (as near as I can understand them) of the various terms I heard or used while in the hospital.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

This disorder is popularly known in the USA as "Lou Gehrig's Disease". In Britain and Ireland they call it "Motor Neurone Disease". Essentially, the neurons which kick the muscles into motion shut down, permanently. The disease is generally progressive, with the muscles wasting away through lack of stimulation. It generally leads to death as the disease will eventually leave the patient unable to breathe.

Ascending Paralysis

This is a central nervous system (think brain and spine) disorder where your spine shuts down from the bottom up. First you lose control of the legs and so on. If I remember correctly, this is a fatal disorder for much the same reasons as for ALS: eventually you stop being able to breathe.

benzylpenicillin

An antibiotic used to combat cellulytic infection. Administered either intra-venously or orally.

cellulytic

A burn infection which travels through the bloodstream beyond the initial wound site. The main feature is that if you have this kind of infection going it will attack the grafts; therefor the surgeons won't operate.

duoderm

This is yet another brand of wound-dressing material, similiar in some ways to granuflex. Squibb/ConvaTec make both products, and the packages call them "hydrocolloid dressing"s. Duoderm is really thin and a little bit stiff (at least initially). I was given some mainly for covering the burn areas of my hand that were tearing up; although Bernie put a small patch on the entry wound between my index and middle fingers.

donor site

The area of the body from which the skin was surgically removed for use in the skin graft.

electro-hematoma

I'm not sure if this is a St James' local term. It literally means "electrical bruise" and refers to the damage to internal tissues (particularly muscle) caused by the passage of electric current. Electro-hematoma generally appears several days after the original injury. It takes time for the deep-tissue damage to become visible at the skin surface.

entry wound

In an electrical injury, you generally get two burns: one where the electricity entered the body and one where it left the body on the way to ground. The place where it entered is called (rather obviously) the entry wound. For an AC burn, the term is not entirely accurate as the current flows in both directions (see the E-Medicine.com articles on the link page), but there is enough of a difference between the source and ground points that the terms are still fairly descriptive.

entry wound

In an electrical injury, you generally get two burns: one where the electricity entered the body and one where it left the body on the way to ground. The place where it entered is called (rather obviously) the exit wound. For more detail, see the definition of entry wound

flucloxicillin

An antibiotic used to combat cellulytic infection. Administered either intra-venously or orally.

granuflex

A brand of wound dressing material used in the burn unit for covering the donor site. It's pretty magical high-tech stuff. Essentially, you just bleed into it and it provides a matrix for the skin the re-grow. Of course, if you're not bleeeding much anymore (like at the end of the donor site healing process), it sticks to the new skin like a nothing you've ever seen.

intra-venous

Literally "in the vein". They stick a needle in your vein and pump stuff directly into your bloodstream.

transverse myelitis

Yet another central nervous system (think brain and spine) disorder. As far as I can tell, the gross symtpoms are identical to ascending paralysis, except that the cause is damage to the nerve sheath of the spine. This one particularly scares me since the current clearly flowed down my spine.