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Multiplace Chamber and Control Panel
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
is a method of administering pure oxygen at greater than atmospheric pressure to
a patient in order to improve or correct certain conditions.
Key Benefits
- Healing of Difficult Wounds
-
Bed sores, leg ulcers, skin grafts, crush injuries,
infected bones and osteoradionecrosis often show remarkable improvement with
HBOT.
- Burns and Skin Grafts
- Infections and Ulcers
- Chronic ulcers may result from a lack of blood supply to an extremity
due to diabetes and other conditions. Unfortunately, conventional medical
practice may recommend amputation in cases where HBOT could preserve the
limb. With revasularization and increased oxygen, the entire extremity or a
large part of it is often saved.
- Sports Injuries
-
Even the most casual of athletes and weekend warriors
experience injuries and have a desire to get healed fast for that big
race/event. Via HBOT, additional oxygen reached damaged bone tissue, and
helps speed the body's own, natural healing process, thereby reducing
recovery time for various soft-tissue injuries and bone fractures.
- Stroke
- HBOT has been shown to improve speech, aid the benefits seen from
occupational therapy and generally improve the quality of life of a person
that has had a stroke. It does this by relieving the hypoxia (lack of
sufficient oxygen), improving the micro-circulation, providing vascular
diffusion of oxygen and reducing cerebral edema and spasticity.
- MS-Multiple Sclerosis
-
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients with Kurtze category
less than five respond very well to hyperbaric oxygenation. Currently there
are 12,000 MS patients being treated at 110 centers in the United Kingdom.
The results are the same as was published by
Dr. Neubauer in 1978 and 1980 in the
Florida Medical Journal:
1) It is not a cure.
2) It is dose
sensitive.
3) It requires long
term follow up treatment.
4) It alters the
natural history of the disease in a favorable fashion.
- Traumatic Brain Injury
-
Cerebral edema
(swelling) is the rise of intra-cranial pressure (ICP) which has serious
consequences. This may be frequently associated with severe head injuries or
the anoxic and toxic encephalopathies. Studies by the Ocean Hyperbaric
Neurologic Centre (OHNC) and others
have shown that HBOT, initiated soon after acute closed head injury, can
reduce mortality by more than 40%, and substantially increase the
possibility of the patient's complete recovery. Recently, close monitoring
of cerebral pressure has been extremely effective.
- Anoxic Ischemic Encephalophathy
( Near drowning, near hanging)
-
Every year, more
than 150,000 Americans suffer severe head injuries. Like stroke, head
injuries deprive certain areas of the brain of oxygen. Again, as in the case
of stroke, the damage resembles an atomic bomb blast, with a central core of
what is probably irreparable damage surrounded by a penumbra of lesser
damage. It is both the size and the location of the initial damage, as well
as the reversibility of the damage within the penumbra, that dictates the
patient's prognosis. In some cases, this damage can be reversed by HBOT.
-
But head injury
isn't the only cause of brain damage. Every year, thousands of Americans
suffer brain damage as the result of near hanging, near drowning, near
choking, cardiac arrest, cyanide and carbon monoxide poisonings, and
lightning strikes. This type of brain damage is known as an anoxic ischemic
encephalopathy.
Brain damage often occurs after a head injury because the brain starts to
swell, pressing delicate tissue against the unyielding skull. One researcher
found that 80 percent of patients with serious head injuries had brain
swelling. This swelling leads to a vicious cycle: the swelling cuts off the
brain's blood supply, which leads the accumulation of toxic levels of normal
cell wastes. The wastes, in turn, further aggravate the swelling. Such
damage can lead to coma, a state of deep unconsciousness in which the
patient does not respond to pain or sound, and cannot be awakened. But even
under such circumstances, certain brain cells survive in a dormant state
within the zone between the damaged and the healthy parts of the brain, a
zone called the penumbra.
-
HBOT can, at
times, break this cycle by constricting the brain's blood vessels, yet
delivering more oxygen. This seems like a contradiction, but HBOT can
increase oxygen levels because the increased pressure forces oxygen into the
blood plasma, the liquid part of the blood that normally does not carry
oxygen, and into the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain. The
plasma and cerebrospinal fluid can then reach areas that the red blood
cells, which normally carry oxygen, cannot penetrate.
With HBOT, oxygen in the capillaries is pushed further into the adjacent
tissues than when oxygen is administered at standard pressure. HBOT can also
stabilize and repair what is called the blood-brain barrier, a protective
layer of cells that keeps many toxins or noxious materials from reaching the
brain. This barrier is often greatly disturbed when a head injury occurs. As
a result of the extra oxygen that HBOT provides, the dormant brain cells in
the penumbra are awakened and begin to function again.
Giving a patient pure oxygen at normal pressure simply cannot put enough
oxygen into either the bloodstream or the cerebrospinal fluid to overcome
the oxygen deficit. But HBOT can improve this oxygen deficiency. Often, this
increased oxygenation helps to restore the patient to a conscious state. In
certain cases, it also allows the patient to recover from brain damage after
effects such as paralysis and speech loss.
Pricing
- Pricing is currently R450 per session
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