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What is this Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?

Hyperbaric (hi-per-bare-ik) medicine is essentially the study of medical and physiological problems, and therapeutic applications of greater then sea level barometric pressure. Hyperbaric oxygenation is accomplished by having the patient breathe 100% oxygen either by face mask, headhood or endotracheal tube in a full body, compressed air (or oxygen pressurized monoplace) chamber. Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) is simply intermittent, short term, high-dose oxygen inhalation therapy.

A century of research in oxygen administration has established that the effects are dose related, and the hyperbaric environment merely provides the opportunity to give higher doses than can be achieved at sea level. How does this occur? The air we breathe is approximately 20 percent oxygen and 80 percent nitrogen. Therefore, if pure oxygen is breathed, on the surface, the inhaled oxygen concentration is increased by five times. In a hyperbaric chamber inhaled oxygen transported to the tissues will increase 10 to 20 times. Today hyperbaric oxygen is the primary treatment for decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism. It is not used as a substitute for another form of traditional therapy. Rather, it is used as adjunctive treatment for disorders, which demonstrate a sound physiological basis for its use. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can promote healing and aid in the treatment of disorders involving oxygen deficiency

Although HBO is well known for its effectiveness in treating decompression illness, it also has beneficial healing effects for other conditions including:

Carbon monoxide poisoning

Gas gangrene

Chronic bone infections

Select non-healing wounds

Radiation tissue damage

Arterial insufficiency, such as crush injuries and compartment syndromes
What follows is a list of what are considered "approved" indications for hyperbaric oxygen therapy:

Air or Gas Embolism

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning and Smoke Inhalation Carbon Monoxide Complicated by Cyanide Poisoning

Clostridial Myonecrosis (Gas gangrene)

Crush Injury, Compartment Syndrome, and Other Acute Traumatic Ischemias

Decompression Sickness

Enhancement of Healing in Selected Problem Wounds

Exceptional Blood Loss (Anemia)

Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infections (Subcutaneous Tissue, Muscle, Fascia)

Osteomyelitis (Refractory)-Cierny and Mader classification system

Systemic or local factors that affect immune surveillance, metabolism, and local vascularity

Radiation Tissue Damage (Osteoradionecrosis or soft tissue radiation necrosis)

Skin Grafts and Flaps (Compromised)

Thermal Burns

Adjunctive Hyperbaric Oxygen in Intracranial Abscess
Other indications, which are currently being researched (but not widely accepted):

Closed Head Injury

Traumatic Brain Injury

Cerebral Palsy

Stroke

Near Drowning

Myocardial Infarction (heart attack)

Chronic Fatigue (as seen in HIV)

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