ABSTRACT
The second stage of healing has been variously called repair, proliferation and regeneration. The tertiary stage is normally termed remodelling. The terms injury, inflammation, repair and remodelling will be used in this text
When describing the stages of healing, the terms acute, subacute and chronic are helpful. The acute stage (up to 48 hours following injury) is generally the stage of inflammation. The subacute stage, occurring between 14 and 21 days after injury, is the stage of repair. The chronic stage (after 21 days) may be viewed as the stage of remodelling. The term chronic is also sometimes used to describe self-perpetuating inflammation, where
Following injury, tissue which has been damaged must be replaced by living material. Two processes are possible, regeneration and repair. With regeneration, tissue is replaced by the proliferation of surrounding undamaged tissue. Therapy to produce this effect is currently in its infancy with stem cell therapy. With repair, however, lost material is replaced by granulation tissue which matures into a scar (Watson 2016), a process which most commonly reflects healing seen within the field of sports and soft tissue injury.
