Skin Tears & Fragile Skin.

With age, skin thins and the layers separate more easily, so a bumped wheelchair frame, a firm grip during a transfer, or a rolled-back sleeve can open a flap of skin that bleeds impressively and heals slowly. In older adults, especially those on blood thinners or steroids, these tears deserve real wound care, not just whatever is in the medicine cabinet.

Our clinicians treat the tear correctly the first time, preserving the skin flap when it can be saved, and then work on the part most people skip: prevention. Padding the actual hazards in the actual apartment, reviewing medications that thin the skin, and teaching caregivers transfer techniques that stop the next one.

A tear larger than a coin. A flap of skin that has torn back. Bleeding that is hard to stop on a blood thinner. Repeated tears in the same person, which is a prevention problem asking to be solved.