Dressing selection plays an important role in reducing or eliminating patients’ pain, both at dressing change and between dressing changes. ActiForm Cool® is a non-adhesive, high water content, ionic hydrogel dressing, which is especially designed for use in painful wounds.

Pain has a variety of presentations and causes, many of which are unique to the patient, resulting in an unpleasant emotional and physical response, which can cause stress and have a deleterious effect on wound management and healing (Upton and Solowiej, 2010). The successful holistic management of wound pain depends on effective treatment of the underlying cause and the mental state of the patient, as well as the removal of devitalised tissue, management of exudate, and the prevention and treatment of infection.

ActiFormCool provides a moist environment at the surface of the wound and will not adhere to the underlying tissue on removal. It is also designed to donate moisture to dry or necrotic wounds and absorb exudate from wet wounds, thus assisting in debridement and desloughing to create the optimum wound healing environment. ActiformCool is thus suitable for use prior to, or in combination with, Debrisoft®.

Dressing structure

ActiFormCool is a transparent hydrogel sheet formed around a supporting polyethylene matrix. The gel is permeable to water vapour, gases and small protein molecules — helping to promote the moist-wound environment needed for optimum healing — but impermeable to bacteria.

Key benefits

• ActiFormCool’s dynamic optimisation of moisture levels in the wound prevents slough acting as a barrier to healing by stimulating autolytic debridement. Once the wound is debrided, granulation tissue formation contributes to a healthy wound bed, thereby facilitating re-epithelialisation.

• Instead of the more commonly used preservative propylene glycol, ActiFormCool is manufactured with phenoxyethanol, lessening the risk of contact dermatitis in patients with chronic venous insufficiency (Gallenkemper et al,1998).

• ActiFormCool is able to adapt to the relative humidity of a wound by donating moisture to a dry wound bed or, alternatively, absorbing excess moisture from exuding wounds.

• ActiFormCool contributes to pain relief in the wound by managing nociceptive wound pain both during and between dressing changes. This is particularly useful for patients with radiotherapy skin damage.

• ActiFormCool will not adhere to the underlying tissue on removal, provided a moist wound environment is maintained.