How to Wrap an Ankle for Support

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's Kayti Brosnan. I'm a registered nurse here in Austin, Texas, and today, I'm going to talk to you about how to wrap an ankle for support. So there's going to be a couple of things that are going to determine what kind of wrap you use. You can use already the pre-made wraps that you can buy, and they just kind of slip on. A lot of times, you find that they don't have as much mobility as you'd like, and one that's more catered to the area that you need support can be most helpful. And so today, I'm going to demonstrate that. If you are a...in athletics, you might have a physical therapist there that will pre-wrap you with tape and then an ace wrap for added support. But in my field, in seeing things within the clinical setting or in the camp nursing setting, I'm primarily using pre-wrap and ace wraps for support, and this is...this is a temporary form of support. So the first thing you want to do is take off their sock. You'll also want to make sure that there's no injury on that foot. You want to make sure...meaning there's no new injury. You also want to make sure that there's no debris -- no pebbles or rocks or anything that you're going to wrap into the wrap that could cause some sort of further injury. Then you want to wrap starting at the toes moving upward. And the reason why we do that is you're avoiding any sort of inflammation or decrease in circulation or numbness, swelling, that sort of thing that could happen if you went from the top of the ankle down to the toes. So you want to start at the toes and move up. You want to be moving in a figure eight pattern, okay? So what that's doing is creating...that's what's actually creating the support is at that point where the figure eight is coming together. So this is something you're going to have to work as a team with the patient to make sure that you're getting the support in the right area, that they're not feeling any numbness or tingling, and that they're feeling the right sort of support. You might actually have to go back and re-wrap. The point is not to get it done in the quickest amount of time or to have the prettiest wrap, but it's to have a wrap that's actually supportive for the ankle that's going to help prevent any further injury. So make sure when you're done, you ask your patient, "Does that feel okay? Do you have any numbness or tingling? And does it feel like it has support?" And that's how you support your ankle with a wrap."