Team Sky Has Huge Benefits from Partnership with Systagenix

Team Sky medical chief Dr Richard Freeman keen to take advantage of company’s research knowledge

Wound Care may not be the first thing to spring to mind when contemplating ways to improve the performance of professional cyclists, but Team Sky believe that a ground-breaking partnership with Systagenix , home of the unique Let’s Heal® system , is giving them a significant advantage on their rivals when it comes to dealing with road rash.

Indeed, other teams have quickly expressed an interest in the dressings Team Sky’s riders have been using this season both because of their novel appearance and evident ability to help wounds heal faster.

“We’ve been very impressed. We first came into contact with them at British Cycling, but we’ve stepped things up to a new level with Team Sky,” explains Dr Richard Freeman. “We’ve tapped into their knowledge of healthcare and gained some huge benefits from that already. We were particularly interested in some of the wound dressings that they produce to treat burns and ulcers, because some of the crash-related injuries that riders get are similar in some ways to those.”

Systagenix wound dressings look very different to the equivalents wrapped with heavy webbing that have been the standard in the pro peloton over the past two decades. “A lot of other cyclists and teams have been interested when they have seen our cyclists using these dressings. I think we’ve moved things on a great deal thanks to the partnership with Systagenix,” says Dr Freeman.

“They’ve got an awful lot of hospital research behind them and we’re looking at using some of their other products as well. For example, they’ve got one dressing we’re looking at that can be used to draw splinters out of a wound. We’re planning to use that with British Cycling’s track riders when they get injuries of that type when they crash on the boards.”

Dr Freeman explains that Team Sky cyclists who come to grief on the road; are treated with a two-phase wound management, from Systagenix’ Let’s Comfort® range – one of the four categories of the Let’s Heal® system. “The cyclists have ADAPTIC TOUCH® dressings applied to the wound initially. Then we use the TIELLE® LITE dressings to complete the healing process,” says Dr Freeman.

“The TIELLE® wound dressing has been one of the mainstays for us this season. It only needs to stay on for three days and during that time it draws the fluid out of a wound, making the healing process much quicker. Combining that with the ADAPTIC TOUCH® dressings; speeds up the whole wound healing process. There are three types of TIELLE® dressing . We use the TIELLE® LITE as that suits the type of road rash wounds cyclists tend to get. It’s almost as if it had been designed for cyclists in terms of its ease of use and effectiveness.”

Team Sky’s progress can be followed on their website: www.teamsky.com and information on Systagenix wound care can be found at www.systagenix.com .

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Contact:

VSPR
Vicky Stoakes
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vicky@vs-pr.com