Learn About the Conditions

Pressure – Deep Tissue

Pressure – Deep Tissue


Wound staging is the appropriate way to describe a Pressure Ulcer.

According to National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) Guidelines, suspected deep tissue pressure ulcers are characterized as described below:

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Suspected Deep Tissue Injury: Purple or maroon localized area of discolored intact skin or blood-filled blister due to damage of underlying soft tissue from pressure and/or shear. The area may be preceded by tissue that is painful, firm, mushy, boggy, warmer or cooler as compared to adjacent tissue.

Deep tissue injury may be difficult to detect in individuals with dark skin tones. Evolution may include a thin blister over a dark wound bed. The wound may further evolve and become covered by thin eschar. Evolution may be rapid exposing additional layers of tissue even with optimal treatment.[1]


Before classifying a wound as a pressure wound, great care should be used to establish that there is not another health condition that predisposed the individual to the wound and that would therefore change the wound type.

Many lower extremity wounds of diabetic and arterial origin have been mistaken for pressure ulcers, and if care is not used to establish and understand the conditions driving the wound, then some important components of a comprehensive treatment plan may be overlooked.

In order to appropriately establish wound type and etiology, a thorough wound assessment should be completed as required by state and federal guidelines.

This thorough initial wound assessment or wound reassessment (as a component of a wound status change) is described AHS’ Assessment Guideline. It requires a detailed assessment of the whole patient and their history as well as other factors including duration of the wound, patient’s recollection of the causative factors, complaints of pain, fever, numbness or drainage.

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