Integumentary System: Wound Healing
Overview
The skin is the largest organ in the human body and forms the barrier between the individual and the external environment. When the skin sustains a deep cut or wound, the regenerative process of skin healing involves four overlapping stages: hemostasis (blood clotting), inflammation (fighting pathogens), proliferation (collagen production), and remodeling (tissue maturation).
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, students will be able to:
- describe the stages of wound healing (hemostasis, inflammatory phase, proliferative phase, and remodeling phase)
- Explain the role that macrophages and fibroblasts play in wound healing.
Video Review
Watch the video: How a wound heals itself – Sarthak Sinha (4 minutes)
Chapter Attributions
This chapter by Elisabeth Kehrli and Anil Kapoor is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Media Attributions
How a wound heals itself – Sarthak Sinha by TED-Ed is licensed under the Standard YouTube license.
Interactive Activity Attributions
The interactive activities in this chapter are from Interactive Activities for Human Anatomy and Physiology by Open Education Lab, Ontario Tech University, and are licensed under a CC BY NC SA 4.0 license.