Tegaderm Ag Alginate Silver Dressing

Tegaderm AG, manufactured by 3M, is an alginate dressing that contains antibacterial silver. These alginate dressings are highly absorbent and sterile. Ensure the wound bed is free from any hairs and then lay the dressing pad down over the wound. Once gelling occurs, lift away the back dressing gently. The soft, gelled pad will absorb moderate exudate.

These ionic silver dressing can be left in place for up to 14 days. The gelling that occurs protects the wound bed by maintaining a moist environment. Moist environments created by these silver alginates promote healing and prevent bacterial contamination.

Tegaderm AG is made from a blend of guluronic acid, calcium alginate, carboxymethylcellulose and a silver ion complex. These compounds are ideal for dealing with stage IV ulcers. Use Silver Alginate Dressing by itself or wrapped with a compression dressing. If the dressing dries, spray gently with water to moisten.

Manufacturer Suggested Uses

• Leg Ulcers
• Post Operative Wounds
• Trauma Wounds
• Pressure Ulcers
• Diabetic Ulcers
• Graft and Donor Sites
• Second Degree Burns

Tegaderm Alginate Ag Silver Dressing Features and Benefits

• Dressing Removes Whole
• Keeps the Wound Bed Moist
• Promotes Healing
• Silver Ions Release for up to 14 Days

Tegaderm Alginate Ag Silver Dressing Contraindications

• Not Designed for Individuals with Sensitivities to Silver
• Not Designed for Implant
• Not Designed for Use on Heavy Bleeding
• Not Designed for Use as a Surgical Sponge

Tegaderm Alginate Ag Silver Dressing Specifications

• Material: Silver, Alginate
• Manufacturer: 3M
• Tegaderm Ag Product Numbers: 90301, 90303, 90307

Product Videos

3M™ Tegaderm™ Alginate AG Dressing Application and Removal (7:09 Minutes)

Video Transcription

Now, let's first demonstrate how you would use this on a superficial wound or a wound that doesn't have much depth and we're going to be using our model here. But also again, anytime you're doing a dressing change you're going to have wanted to set up your field with your supplies before you begin and you're going to do that of course according to your infection control policies in your facility. But I have my gloves ready. I have wound cleanser. I have my 3M Cavilon No Sting Barrier Film that I'm going to apply to the periwound skin for protection. Then I have my dressing size selected based on my wound assessment and open end ready. For the purposes of our demonstration today we're not going to demonstrate cleansing the wound but I do want to show you just how you would apply the Cavilon No Sting Barrier Film to the wound edges for periwound protection. After you cleansed the wound and you dried the surrounding skin you can either take the one-milliliter wand applicator and apply it to that surrounding skin and let that dry. You could also use the spray version of the product and there's also the one milliliter wipe. That's going to help protect that surrounding skin from any excessive moisture that that surrounding skin might be exposed to. Let's move those materials out of the way so I can show you the Tegaderm Alginate AG dressing. Now, there's two ways you can apply it to a wound that doesn't have a lot of depth. You can either take a wound that's fairly close in size, place it into the wound and just fold in the edges because again you don't want more overlap than about an eighth of an inch. You just fold it in, my model's slipping a little bit here. Fold it in to the edges and then you would cover this with your cover dressing and we're going to be talking about cover dressings in just a moment. That's one method. But I generally prefer based on the size of my wound to actually cut the dressing and prepare the dressing so I get a little bit more accuracy in the size. What I've done is based on my wound measurements I've gone ahead and cut that dressing. You can see there's hardly any overlap, a little bit of overlap around that wound but no more than an eighth of an inch. At this point in time I can go ahead then and put my cover dressing over the top and be confident that as that drainage is absorbed into the Alginate dressing that's going to swell a little bit, shrinked down into the wound and not really threaten those wound. I know also I have my Cavilon No Sting Barrier Film applied so that skin is very well protected. I'm going to just remove that for a second so it doesn't fall out. Then, we're going to go ahead and show how to apply the rope dressing into a deeper wound. Let's go ahead and fill the deeper wound on our model now and we're going to use the rope as I mentioned. Of course when you're filling a wound you can either do this with gloved fingers or you can use a sterile cotton tip applicator. You've of course have rinsed your wound, you've irrigated your wound and then you've also applied a protective barrier film, the Cavilon No Sting Barrier Film to your surrounding skin. Now, this version of the dressing is also very useful if you have a tunnel or a tract that you need to fill or gently pack. Now you're all ready to go with your wound filler. So just taking your gloved finger, just gently laying the rope in the wound tucking it into any undermine space and just layering it back and forth until you filled the entire wound. Again, you want to fill the wound to the surface making sure you fill the entire cavity. For this wound, actually I would probably take another piece of rope and just use a portion of that rope to fill the remaining part of this wound. Again, you want to fill it to the surface with only no more than about an eighth of an inch overlap around the edges. That shows you how you would fill using the rope dressing and I'm just going to take that out now because I also want to show you another technique. If you don't happen to carry the rope in your facility and you instead just carry the pad version you can also use the pad version to fluff into a wound. In this case, you wouldn't cut the dressing but you would just take the Alginate AG and you would gently tuck and fold the dressing down into the cavity, never stuffing forcefully, always very gently, tucking and folding to get the dressing into the wound and completely filling the wound. This is actually what the four by five dressing a very nice fit for this size wound. Then at that point, you can apply your cover dressing and that may be for more moderate drainage you may be able to use just a simple composite dressing such as a medipore plus pad. Again, in this area the body a lot of times a barrier dressing is a very good choice. A lot of times these patients are also incontinent. You may need to use the medipore plus dressing but if you're needing to absorb larger amounts of drainage, say this wound has a large amount or a copious amount of drainage then a foam dressing is a much better choice. You have the option of the 3M foam adhesive dressing. Again that has a Tegaderm covering so it provides barrier protection from urine and stool. In some situations you may decide to use the non-adhesive version, which once it's applied would need of course to be secured with tape. But I'm just going to go ahead and show you how it would look if we apply our foam adhesive dressing over this wound and pressing that down into place and then removing the spoke delivery pieces. You can see what a very nice finished result. Now, that wound is not only filled, has an absorbent anti-microbial wound filler in it but also has a cover dressing that provides a very nice barrier for it.