RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY
Rehabilitation of post-burn scars
The burns are one of the worst traumas. They destroy part or the whole skin and deeper tissues (fat, muscle, vessels, nerves, tendons, bones, etc) and may have thermal, chemical or electrical causes.
Extended burns may threaten the life of the patient, as they distort all the vital functions of the organism. Those patients are hospitalized in a special burn department.
The plastic surgery addresses the patient initially and afterwards, to treat the burn implications. Those are mainly: the malformed post-burn scars which cause aesthetic problems to the patient, especially if the burns are located in the face, the contracture scars, which can be found near the joints or nape and nullify the movement spread, the ustable scars (traumas that do not “heal”), which cause chronic problems to the patients and the transformation of a post-burn scar to a squamous cell carcinoma.
To rehabilitate these problems various techniques of the reconstructive plastic surgery are used. In most cases, more than one operation may be needed, for the desired results.
The plastic surgeon seeks to improve and fully restore the patient, as well as the best possible cosmetic rehabilitation, as the life quality of the patients is usually a combination of those factors.