The Wound Care Specialists at Tahoe Forest Hospital are physical therapists with advanced wound care certifications and training. These PTs can evaluate and treat a wide variety of wounds, including chronic non-healing wounds, arterial and venous wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, surgical dehiscence, burns, trauma wounds, pressure ulcers, and infected wounds.

Each wound is handled with utmost care and a specialized care plan to best optimize healing. A course of wound care requires a physician’s referral and may require treatment at our clinic 2-3 times a week for several weeks. Our services include sharp debridement, wound and peri-wound cleansing, therapeutic compression wrapping, negative pressure wound therapy (SNAP and ActiVAC), total contact casting, and skilled dressing selection and changes.

Our services and continuous monitoring can help keep patients safe from infection and reduce trips to the emergency department.

Hi, I’m Karen Woodward-Hatcher, Physical Therapist at the Tahoe Forest Wound Center. Our team consists of physical therapists who specialize in wound treatments and wound healing, and we’re all wound care certified. We work with wounds that are typically just chronic wounds, difficult to heal. These can include arterial or venous ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, surgical dehiscences, infected wounds, traumatic wounds, or any wound that’s just hard to heal.

As physical therapists, we utilize our skills and advanced wound care dressings and modalities to help maximize your potential in healing your wounds. Some of the treatments that we use are sharp debridement, which includes the use of instruments such as scalpels, forceps, and scissors to remove any unwanted debris or necrotic tissue that can interfere with healing, and it can also stimulate wound healing. Negative pressure wound therapy, which is also known as a WoundVAC, is a modality used to heal the deeper wounds up to two times faster. Total contact casting is the gold standard in offloading diabetic foot ulcers to allow you to heal as best as possible while also maintaining as normal a lifestyle as possible.

Therapeutic compression wrapping is another technique we use to reduce microedema, improve circulation, and reduce swelling, which can allow your wounds to heal faster, and we can transition that into compression garments long term to avoid recurrence. These modalities, along with advanced wound care dressings, can allow your wounds to have the optimal environment to heal while also reducing the frequency of dressing changes and being more convenient for your own lifestyle.

We also offer education in nutritional support for wound healing and assist you in obtaining offloading footwear for long-term use and long-term compression garments. After evaluation, we typically see the patient about two times a week for several weeks or longer if needed to allow complete closure of the wound.

So, if you or someone you know has a wound that’s having trouble healing, we’re more than happy to help. All we need is a referral from a physician, and we can take it from there. My name is Karen Hatcher. I’m a physical therapist at Tahoe Forest Wound Clinic, and thank you for watching.

Wound therapy services include

  • Sharp debridement
  • Therapeutic compression wrapping
  • Negative pressure wound therapy (wound VAC changes)
  • Total contact casting
  • Offloading techniques
  • Skilled dressing selection & changes
  • Patient and caregiver education
  • Lymphatic drainage

We are currently accepting new patients with an appropriate referral.

Meet Our Wound Care Staff

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