After surgery for a broken left ankle in 2010, Steve Klastava noticed the surgical area wasn’t healing. A worsening situation required intervention by a specialist in wound care to make him healthy again.
After surgery for a broken left ankle in 2010, Steve Klastava noticed the surgical area wasn’t healing. A worsening situation required intervention by a specialist in wound care to make him healthy again.
In the fall of 2010, Steve Klastava fell and broke his ankle, which required surgery to fix. Several months later, Peggee Klastava noticed that her father’s ankle was not healing properly. She monitored the condition of the wound until, becoming alarmed, she took her 95-year-old father in for an exam and discovered that an infection had formed around the bone screws used to mend the fracture. She knew she needed medical advice and treatment for her dad. “I asked my father’s primary care provider about another place I could take him. He recommended Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Rahway,” said Ms. Klastava.
No-Nonsense Wound Care
Ms. Klastava’s father received the attention his medical condition required at the Wound Care Center at RWJ Rahway.
“The nurses were friendly, helpful, and communicative,” Ms. Klastava said. “Every time I called them or took my father to the hospital, they would ask how he was doing. Other patients we talked to in the waiting room also had positive experiences.”
Mr. Klastava met with Anthony Tonzola, MD, FACS, Medical Director of the Wound Care Center at RWJ Rahway. After a thorough evaluation, Dr. Tonzola developed a custom treatment plan based on the origin and cause of Mr. Klastava’s wound.
“In any nonhealing wound where orthopedic hardware is exposed, it becomes more difficult to achieve healing,” Dr. Tonzola said. “Adding to this was the fact that Mr. Klastava had reduced skin elasticity.”
Collaborating for Swifter Treatment
Dr. Tonzola consulted with Mr. Klastava’s orthopedic surgeon to have the surgical screws removed as soon as the ankle was stable and used a hypoallergenic skin graft to repair the wound. Within six weeks, Mr. Klastava’s wound healed.
“Dr. Tonzola took the initiative to work with my father’s orthopedic surgeon to come up with a plan to heal the wound,” Ms. Klastava said. “He took care of everything.”