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BODYCAST - THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE CSOT Elastic Bandages: How tight is too tight? By David Gallant, RN, OTC Reprinted with permission from Orthototech Professional, September/October 2005. This is a very common question that I get from staff, patients and their relatives. It is not unusual to get a call from someone with a problem of a bandage that has either been soiled and it needs to be replaced, or that the bandage is too tight and needs to be rewrapped. The caller may not be aware just how tight to apply the wrap. So, we came up with this universal remedy: A. Hold a short length of the wrap up to the light. B. Stretch the wrap until you can almost see through it. C. Now relax the wrap until you can see just a glimmer of light… and that tension is about how tight the wrap should be. We also caution all elastic wrap users NOT to go back and forth on the extremity with the wrap if it is too long. Double over in length will make the wrap four times tighter.
This abstract is a portion of the article
which appears in the Spring 2006 issue of BodyCast.
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