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Silicone Dressings

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Silicone Dressings

Soft silicone wound dressings for clinics, hospitals, aged care facilities and NDIS providers across Australia. Silicone adheres to dry, intact skin but lifts away from the moist wound bed, so dressing changes do not tear the healing surface or strip the surrounding skin.

Where silicone dressings are used

They are the default on fragile skin. In aged care that covers most residents: skin thins with age, long-term steroid use makes it thinner again, and a standard acrylic adhesive removed carelessly takes the top layer with it. Silicone avoids that, which is why it is chosen for skin tears, ageing skin, paediatric wounds, and any wound needing frequent inspection.

Most soft silicone dressings are repositionable. You can lift an edge to inspect the wound and lay it back down without wasting the dressing, which cuts both cost and disturbance.

Skin tears

Where a skin flap is still attached, ease it back over the wound bed before dressing rather than trimming it off. The flap is viable tissue and acts as its own graft. Dress with a silicone contact layer or silicone foam, and mark an arrow on the dressing showing the direction of removal, away from the attached edge of the flap. Without that arrow the next person to change it will almost certainly peel against the flap and lift it off.

Pressure injury prevention

Silicone foam is also used prophylactically rather than only as a treatment. Applied over the sacrum and heels of a high-risk patient, it redistributes shear and friction and protects the skin before any wound exists. It supplements repositioning and pressure-relieving surfaces, it does not replace them.

Types

Silicone adhesive foam: a foam dressing with a silicone contact layer and adhesive border. Absorbent and self-fixing.
Contact layers: a thin perforated silicone sheet placed directly on the wound bed beneath a separate absorbent dressing. Use where you want the absorbency separate from the contact layer.
Shaped: sacral and heel profiles designed to fit those areas without rucking.
Bordered and non-bordered: bordered carries its own fixation; non-bordered needs a retention bandage or tape.

When silicone is not the answer

Silicone manages contact and adhesion, not bioburden or heavy exudate. A heavily exuding wound needs the absorbency matched separately, and an infected wound needs an antimicrobial dressing. Silicone is also not indicated on a wound needing debridement.

Stocked brands include Biatain Silicone, 3M Tegaderm Silicone, Adaptic Touch and ActivHeal. Selection should be made by a qualified clinician based on the individual wound and the condition of the surrounding skin.