As well as the assortment of different clinical wounds described previously there are presently two experimental paradigms used by researchers to examine wound healing in the laboratory, particularly, inflicting a standardized wound to the skin or oral mucosa using a punch biopsy or alternatively creating suction blisters. A third less invasive approach involves causing minor injury to the stratum corneum or outer layer of the skin by repeated application of cellophane tape. This damages the capability of the skin to standardize the movement of water in and out of the body known as its barrier function. Recovery of the barrier can be calculated by the level of water loss.
This review aimed to look at whether a common relationship with stress existed across different wound types and experimental models. There are a number of reviews in existence that look at the relationship...
The goals of this review were twofold. First it was intended to summarize existing research looking at the nature of the connection between stress and wound healing in a systematic review and it set out to quantify the size of the relationship in a meta-analysis of a subset of included studies.
Interesting Facts
I found it interesting that there hadn't been more research done on this topic. It is well-known that stress has an effect on the body in a lot of other areas so it seems very reasonable that stress would have an effect on the body when it comes to wound healing. It was also interesting to see how the immune system is affected by stress and thus has an affect on wound healing, since the immune system is key to wound healing.
