Considerations in Determining the Severity of Burn Scar Contractures With Focus on the Knee Joint.

Scar contractures are a common complication after burn injuries. These contractures are characterized by impairment of joint mobility, leading to a risk for limitations during daily activities, and restrictions in participation in society. Qualifying its severity is not well established in burn care.

Rating scales for shoulder and elbow range of motion impairment: Call for a functional approach.

Background: To evaluate the effect of (new) treatments or analyse prevalence and risk factors of contractures, rating scales are used based on joint range of motion. However, cut-off points for levels of severity vary between scales, and it seems unclear how cut-off points relate to function. The purpose of this study was to compare severity ratings of different rating scales for the shoulder and elbow and relate these with functional range of motion.

Prevalence of scar contractures after burn: A systematic review.

Objective: Burn scar contractures are the pathological outcome of excessive scarring and ongoing scar contraction. Impairment of joint range of motion is a threat to performing activities in daily living. To direct treatment strategies to prevent and/or correct such contractures, insight into the prevalence, course, and determinants is essential.

Adaptation of the dermal collagen structure of human skin and scar tissue in response to stretch: an experimental study.

Surgeons are often faced with large defects that are difficult to close. Stretching adjacent skin can facilitate wound closure. In clinical practice, intraoperative stretching is performed in a cyclical or continuous fashion.

Collagen bundle morphometry in skin and scar tissue: a novel distance mapping method provides superior measurements compared to Fourier analysis.

Histopathological evaluations of fibrotic processes require the characterization of collagen morphology in terms of geometrical features such as bundle orientation thickness and spacing. However, there are currently no reliable and valid techniques of measuring bundle thickness and spacing. Hence, two objective methods quantifying the collagen bundle thickness and spacing were tested for their reliability and validity: Fourier first-order maximum analysis and Distance Mapping, with the latter constituting a newly developed morphometric technique.