Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments are effective for treating many disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, according to an article on www.ehow.com.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments also known HBO therapy was not intended to treat Cerebral Palsy or other brain injuries but when coupled with intensive physical and occupational therapy can be effective, according to the article.
The Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Center website, which can be found at http://www.hypertc.com states that the treatment has also been effective for treating Cerebral Palsy, ,Autism, Strokes, Multiple Sclerosis and sports related injuries.

HBO therapy usually involves the patient being put into an inflatable “room” which is just big enough for a person to lie down or sit up in. The air pressure of the room is usually two to three times normal air pressure and it filled with 100% oxygen. The increase in air allows oxygen to flow to the patients organs and body tissue, according to a second article about HBO therapy on www.ehow.com.
The Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Center states the one treatment session lasts an hour. Patients should have multiple treatments and the number will determined during an initial evaluation with their choose treatment center.

The cost varies depending on the number of treatments needed and type of chamber used. The website states that patients can read a book, listen to music, talk on their cell phone, play a handheld videogame and/or work on a laptop to occupy themselves while in the chamber.

People who are prone to ear infections, have ear canal or ear wax related problems should not have HBO treatments because the increased air pressures in the chamber can cause patients to feel pressure on their ears. It is recommended that patients try yawning and massaging their ears in order to relieve the pressure. People who are intoxicated or experiencing cold or flu symptoms should not have the treatments because it could be dangerous to them and others who use the chamber after them, according to the website.

People of all ages can have HBO therapy but it is more effective on young children because they are still developing. The Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment center is located in Cumming Georgia. Many other medical facilities have been known to offer the treatment. People and or family looking into this type of treatment should keep in mind that because it was not intended to treat brain injuries many insurance companies will not pay for it. As noted above the cost varies. According to the first article about HBO therapy on www.ehow.com the cost can range anywhere from $100-$250 per treatment depending on the type of chamber used.
Patients and their families also have the option of purchasing or renting a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, according to the treatment center’s website. Those who are interested in buying or renting a chamber should visit http://www.vitao2.com/index.cfm for details. Please note that a prescription is needed to complete either transaction.

Patients and families looking for further guidance or who are skeptical may want to take the time to read the testimonials of patients and families find on the Hyperbaric Oxygen Center’s website.

For more info visit: http://www.ehow.com/how_4465058_use-hyperbaric-chamber-therapy-cerebral.html
http://www.ehow.com/way_5273455_hyperbaric-chamber-therapy.html
http:// http://www.vitao2.com/index.cfm
http://www.hypertc.com

Elizabeth Diffin/Medill
They look like submarines or spaceships. But have you ever wondered what it's like INSIDE a hyperbaric chamber for oxygen therapy? The Midwest Hyperbaric Institute in Bolingbrook offers a peek inside a device used to help treat wounds, neurological disorders, cerebral palsy and, increasingly, autism.



by Elizabeth Diffin

It could be any after-school program or day-care center, with a set of twins playing tug-of-war with a pillow and a serious-looking boy watching a television program. But what makes this room different from the typical cookies-and-juice session is the fact that these children are encased in large acrylic tubes where they’re breathing pressurized, oxygenated air.
These children have been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, and they’re receiving a controversial treatment – hyperbaric oxygen therapy – in the hope that it will improve their autistic symptoms and behaviors.
A study published in March found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in which air is pressurized to simulate deep-sea levels, may be a viable treatment for autism. The research showed improvements in autistic children who had the therapy, particularly in their overall "autistic functioning," such as receptive language, social interaction and eye contact.
Dr. Dan Rossignol, a family practitioner in Melbourne, Fla., who authored the study, has two autistic children of his own. In 2006, after "buzz" began to build about hyperbaric oxygen therapy in kids with autism, he and his wife decided to try it for their younger son, who had only been speaking single words. After about 20 hyperbaric treatments, the boy began to put together three to four word sentences, piquing his father’s interest in the topic.
However, when Rossignol, who has a hyperbaric chamber in his clinic, began to look into research on hyperbaric oxygen therapy for autism, he said he was surprised to see there weren’t any double-blind controll studies on the topic. So he decided to do his own and published the results in BMC Pediatrics, an open-access online journal.
Doctors at Midwest Hyperbaric Institute in the southwest suburb of Bolingbrook, have been using hyperbaric oxygen therapy with autistic children for the past five years. In addition to the traditional uses of hyperbaric oxygen therapy – such as wound healing and decompression sickness – the facility has pioneered treatment for neurological conditions like cerebral palsy, stroke, multiple sclerosis and autism.
The facility traditionally has five or six children undergoing treatments during the same time period. The children have 40 sessions, called "dives," at 1.3 to 1.5 atmospheres, take a break for four to six weeks, and then return for 40 more dives. By the end of the 80 one-hour sessions, parents, doctors – and even independent therapists – say they notice some sort of improvement in the autistic kids.
In fact, Dr. August Martinucci, the medical director of Midwest Hyperbaric Institute, said that in the years he’s been treating autistic children with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, it’s always proven effective.
"I’ve never seen one [child] with no improvement whatsoever," Martinucci said. "It might have been minor, but there have been changes."
He does caution, however, that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is not the autism cure-all and that it works best in conjunction with the other more traditional therapies.
According to Martinucci, there’s not a single "silver bullet" that will be a cure. "It’s a spectrum disease," he said. "You have to have a spectrum of treatments."
Parents admit that they’re willing to try almost anything to help their autistic child improve.
Brian McNally, whose 6-year-old son, Sean, was diagnosed with autism about four years ago, said the boy is on a variety of medications and supplements, goes to physical and occupational therapy, and adheres to a strict diet.
"We’re throwing the kitchen sink in to see what sticks," McNally said.
But he said that in the 28 sessions Sean has undergone, he’s already exhibited signs of improvement. Sean makes eye contact more often and obeys directions. He just learned to ride a bike. And next school year, he will be part of a partially-integrated first grade class, participating in classes such as art, music and lunch with the so-called "normal" children.
"They’re tiny gains," McNally said. "But all the tiny gains add up."
Skeptics say that these supposed gains may simply be a case of the placebo effect, with parents seeing an improvement only because they’re looking for one. In traditional drug studies, the placebo effect is observed when the participants taking a "sugar pill" report medical improvement.
In Rossignol’s study, a striking 73 percent of parents with children in the control group rated their child as improved, without knowing they hadn’t been given true hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
"The placebo effect is very powerful," said Dr. Alan Rosenblatt, a Chicago neurodevelopmental pediatric specialist. "I think when there is no cure, anything is a cure."
Rosenblatt said his skepticism is rooted in his own understanding of neurophysiology, as well as the success he has seen as a result of behavioral interventions in very young children. He said the research community might be better served by focusing on the more proven therapies, and their theoretical foundations, when it comes to treating autism.
"You have to have a healthy dose of skepticism even for a proven therapy," Rosenblatt, who is on faculty at Feinberg School of Medicine, said. "More understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease will lead to the most meaningful interventions and treatments."
In fact, no one knows for sure why hyperbaric oxygen therapy might cause the improvement so many parents and therapists have noticed. But Martinucci speculated that the increased blood flow from the hyperbaric oxygen therapy acts as an anti-inflammatory agent that soothes the swelling many autistic children suffer from in their brain and gastrointestinal tract.
Patients being treated for a variety of conditions also mention the increased "clarity of thought" brought on by the hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Jennifer, who asked that her last name not be used, is the mother of 3-year-old autistic twins being treated at Midwest Hyperbaric Institute.
"Both of my kids seemed less foggy," she said. "They were looking at me and getting it. They seemed more ‘plugged in.’"
And the energetic boys running down the hallway to "blast off" in the spaceship-shaped hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber certainly seem a far cry from the withdrawn children their mother described.
"They love it here," she said, noting their roughhousing in the hyperbaric chamber.
Indeed, many autistic patients seem to do particularly well when it comes to hyperbaric oxygen therapy, Martinucci said. Children who benefit from deep pressure find the treatment soothing and some of them have mentioned that their heads "feel good" after the treatment.
"We have more problems with the parents than with the kids," Martinucci said. "The kids are happy to go in there."
Of course, there are bigger problems than overprotective parents when it comes to the application of hyperbaric oxygen therapy to autism. Rosenblatt doesn’t think that Rossignol’s study is conclusive enough for him to recommend to patients.
"I can’t say it’s a proven therapy for autism," Rosenblatt said. "But I do think we ought to take this study seriously and challenge people to replicate it."
Rosenblatt said that he’s happy the researchers attempted to do a double-blind study, something that is notoriously difficult with a spectrum disorder. But he said that if the research is able to be replicated – preferably by a more authoritative academic center – it’s more likely to be embraced by the mainstream medical community. But until that point, he said he would recommend parents to focus on the proven interventions, such as behavioral and speech therapies.
"My advice would be to put neurodevelopmental therapies at the center of your total therapeutic package," Rosenblatt said.
And if patients are insistent on trying other treatments, Rosenblatt said to explore them one at a time to determine their true impact.
"Many parents won’t feel comfortable until they’ve tried every possible intervention to help their child," Rosenblatt said. "My heart goes out to these parents. I don’t envy them their choices and decisions."
Many of those same parents are hopeful that increased study of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in autistic kids will have a different sort of benefit: the financial kind. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments are expensive – a set of sessions can cost several thousand dollars – and many insurance companies aren’t willing to cover them because they’re considered "off-label."
Tina O’Sullivan, whose 17-month-old son, Sean, is being treated for a brain injury – not autism – at Midwest Hyperbaric Institute, said the insurance payments are a constant battle.
"Insurance covers certain things," she said. "But these treatments are essentially his first year of college."
Rossignol said he hopes that if his study is able to be reproduced, it might open the door to additional approved treatment options for autism. And he believes that in the long-run, those treatments will have a larger benefit.
"If we can come up with treatments that lead to improvements, the savings to society could be huge," Rossignol said. "If these studies continue to come out, it might become a standard treatment."
But in the meantime, he hopes that for the people who can afford to pay for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, his study provides some reassurance.
"If parents want to do this and have the money, it certainly seems to be safe," Rossignol said. "Parents can know it’s not going to be harmful."
In fact, he said that the main finding of the study was that the hyperbaric oxygen therapy was well-tolerated by most children. And he was quick to point out that although they did observe some gains, there were some kids who didn’t necessarily improve, which was expected.
"Within a study, there’s always going to be some who improve and some who don’t," he said. "We take a reasonable approach: This is a promising treatment."




Elizabeth Diffin/Medill
Sean McNally, a 6-year-old with autism, is more than a quarter of the way through his hyperbaric oxygen therapy. His parents and teachers have noticed positive results.












Research looks at hyperbaric treatment and autism
The hyperbaric oxygen treatment study for autism, published in the March issue of BMC Pediatrics, was a double-blind, controlled trial.
Dr. Dan Rossignol and his colleagues studied 62 children between the ages of two and seven who received 40 treatments over the course of four weeks. The treatment group had hyperbaric oxygen therapy with air pressurized to a standard 1.3 atmospheres (the rough equivalent of deep-sea diving to 10 feet), while the control group breathed only slightly pressurized air to mimic the other treatment.
The children, their parents and the evaluating physicians did not know which group the children were in. The hyperbaric technicians, who had no input into the treatment, were the only ones aware of each child’s status and were instructed to keep it secret.
At the beginning and end of the study, the parents and physicians filled out standardized scales rating the child’s functioning in several different areas. The evaluations were then compared to determine whether the child had improved as a result of the therapy. Children in the treatment group scored significantly better on the Clinical Global Impression scale, with the greatest improvements found in overall functioning, receptive language, social interaction and eye contact.
Analysis done after the study’s completion revealed that higher-functioning autistic children, who initially scored in the top 50 percent of the scales, showed the fastest improvement. Children over the age of five also showed greater advances than their younger counterparts.
Rossignol was quick to point out that those results need to be studied further to determine if they are a "true finding."
"We don’t know for sure why [the therapy] worked," he said. "But the nice thing about this study is that a condition that’s felt by most people to be untreatable is showing potential improvement. We’re not saying this is an answer or a cure. But it might be good in some children. It’s promising."

By Gerry J. Gilmore American Forces Press Service
Innovative therapies that have assisted previously comatose patients regain consciousness may be incorporated on a greater scale to treat troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, a brain injury expert said Mar. 23.

Dr. Philip A. DeFina, chief executive and scientific officer at the not-for-profit International Brain Research Foundation Inc., in Edison, N.J., said that, over the past four years, electronic brain stimulation, oxygen-induction, drugs and other therapies were used to bring 43 people, including five injured soldiers, out of minimally-conscious or vegetative states. DeFina, an Army veteran, is also the chief consultant for the brain injury program at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, a for-profit hospital in West Orange, N.J. He was one of several civilian and military guest speakers who attended March 23’s Reserve Officers Association-sponsored seminar in Washington, D.C., on mental health care. Brain injuries can occur because of blunt-force trauma to the head, explosions, and penetrative wounds, DeFina explained. Such injuries, he said, cause oxygen starvation in the brain, from which damage ensues. “There are a number of different types of (brain) injuries that we’ve been dealing with -- all of which have been responding to the protocols,” he said. “What we’re doing proactively, with our consortium of doctors and scientists,” he said, is “to electrically and chemically stimulate the brain.

” Other treatments employed, he said, include drugs and oxygen-inducing regimes, such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy, where the brain is inundated with oxygen. The goal, he said, is to balance the electrical and chemical activity in the brain. “Once we can stabilize electrical-chemical activity, we can optimize what the brain’s capability is at that point,” he said. Doctors can employ functional imagery techniques to examine the state of a person’s neural markers, which are the chemical and electrical patterns within the brain, he said. “We can then use that to guide us for treatment and to predict recovery,” he said. The prognosis for recovery for the five injured soldiers was “close to zero,” he said, before they underwent the treatments at the Kessler institute.

“The brain heals,” DeFina said, noting there are “different levels of improvement” among patients who’d formerly been minimally conscious and/or unresponsive. After treatment, some people “wake up and some people can communicate,” DeFina said. Other people, he said, may be able to perform simple tasks or return to work. “So, we have different levels of the ability to recover,” he said. And, applying such innovative therapies to patients with mild to moderate forms of traumatic brain injury, he said, produces “dramatic results.” Congress has set aside about $6.4 million in Fiscal Year 2009 appropriations funding, DeFina said, so that the foundation can conduct continued research and development of the new therapies in cooperation with military health care organizations. “We’re in the process of accessing those funds,” he said. The foundation has developed close relationships with several Defense Department healthcare components, DeFina said, including the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, headed by Army Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Loree K. Sutton. “Within the last year, we’ve had probably about 30 military doctors from the Army and Marines come visit Kessler to look at the program, including General Sutton,” DeFina said. “We’ve briefed them, we’ve given them formal presentations on all the science, and then showed them the patients that are there. “We’ve gotten a really good response from that,” he said. Many innovative therapies, DeFina said, have been used in a “stand-alone” manner to successfully treat patients with brain injuries. Yet, using those therapies in combination “is even more powerful,” he said.

A decompression chamber may help children with autism, say researchers.
After 40 hours of hyperbaric treatment autistic children showed significant improvements in social interaction and eye contact compared with controls.
The BMC Pediatrics study could not show if the results were long-lasting but should prompt further investigation of the treatment, the US team said.
One theory is that oxygen can help reduce inflammation and improve flow of oxygen to brain tissue.

Hyperbaric treatment - effectively giving high concentrations of oxygen at increased atmospheric pressure - has been shown to have some benefit in other neurological conditions such as foetal alcohol syndrome and cerebral palsy.
“ We're certainly not talking about a cure, we're talking about improvements in behaviour, improving certain functions and quality of life ” Study leader, Dr Dan Rossignol

Some studies have looked at the treatment in children with autism but they have not compared with a dummy procedure raising questions around a "placebo effect".
In the latest study, carried out at six centres in the US, 62 children aged two to seven with autism were randomly assigned to receive 40 hours of treatment over a month with 24% oxygen at increased atmospheric pressure (1.3 atm) or normal air in a slightly pressurised room (1.03 atm).

Children who received the treatment showed significant improvements in overall functioning, receptive language, social interaction, eye contact, and sensory or cognitive awareness.

In all, 30% in the treatment group were rated by doctors as "very much improved" or "much improved" compared with 8% of those in the control group.
Overall, 80% in the treatment group improved compared with 38% of controls.
Behaviour

Study leader, Dr Dan Rossignol from the International Child Development Resource Centre, in Florida, said the use of hyperbaric therapy for autism has been gaining popularity in the US where parents can buy their own hyperbaric chamber if they have a spare $14-17,000.

He said the findings would be quite controversial and he too was initially very sceptical of the idea but was prompted to do more research after the treatment showed benefits for his two sons who have autism.

"We're certainly not talking about a cure, we're talking about improvements in behaviour, improving certain functions and quality of life.
"The next step is to try to find out which kids do respond, because it's an expensive treatment - it may be that kids with more inflammation respond better.

“ We also don't know about long-term effects - it could be a transitory effect ” Richard Mills, Research Autism
"It would also be nice to know how long the treatment lasts, and the finding needs to be confirmed."
Richard Mills, research director at Research Autism, said this was the first well-designed study looking at the therapy.
"We know this kind of therapy is useful in a number of neurological conditions and that's been well established.
"What we don't know is how useful it is in autism, what we could be seeing is an improvement in other neurological conditions that go alongside autism.
"We also don't know about long-term effects - it could be a transitory effect."
Professor Philip James, an expert in hyperbaric medicine at the University of Dundee, said the pressure used was no more than that used to pressurise an aircraft cabin on the ground.
He added that oxygen was the "controller of inflammation" but also had other effects on regulation of genes and tissue regeneration.
But even if proven, the treatment may not be for everybody.
"When you have any condition, there are people who have too much damage to get better."
"All the oxygen is doing is bringing things towards normal."

Story from BBC NEWS

Oxygen Therapy Is Valuable, Sometimes

By JANE E. BRODY
Published: March 9, 2009
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy was long called a treatment in search of diseases. But in recent years, laboratory and clinical studies have found more than a dozen serious diseases for which it is considered a valuable — and sometimes life-saving — treatment.

Although the administration of pure oxygen in a high-pressure chamber has been around as a therapy for more than 300 years, it is only now beginning to reach its potential, according to a report in the November issue of the journal Emergency Medicine.

At the same time, hyperbaric oxygen therapy has joined the ranks of unproven remedies for many conditions, especially incurable ones like cerebral palsy and autism. The use of the therapy in these situations often borders on quackery that exploits desperate patients and parents. One family I know spent $40,000 in a futile attempt to reverse their child’s cerebral palsy; another spent more than that and even bought a home hyperbaric unit to treat their child’s autism.

The Credibility Factor

The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, the professional organization in this field, recognizes 13 conditions for which it is legitimate to place patients in high-pressure chambers that force pure oxygen into their blood and tissues. Eleven of those conditions have been approved by Medicare for reimbursement, indicating that solid evidence supports these uses of hyperbaric oxygen.

The list includes decompression sickness (“the bends”), necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene, the bone infection osteomyelitis, nonhealing wounds and delayed radiation injury to bone and soft tissue.

But nowhere in the list are cerebral palsy, autism, multiple sclerosis, stroke, macular degeneration, spinal cord injury, sports injuries, heart attack, postpolio syndrome, Lyme disease, migraine, cirrhosis, myasthenia gravis, fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome — among the dozens of conditions that independent clinics claim to treat with hyperbaric oxygen. Not to mention the claims of celebrities like Michael Jackson, who used it in the hope that it will keep him alive to 150, and Keanu Reeves, who used it for insomnia.

“Credibility is a huge problem,” said Richard E. Clarke, director of the Baromedical Research Foundation, which sponsors scientifically sound research. “We are all tarred by the same brush.”

“Although hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been suggested as beneficial in several other conditions, unfortunately, clinically valid evidence is virtually nonexistent,” he said. “This is relatively expensive and time-consuming therapy, and it makes sense to ask whether it is cost-effective and whether the benefits are long-lasting.”

Even for conditions approved by Medicare, supporting evidence is often contradictory. “A persistent criticism of hyperbaric medicine regards the lack of large-scale, multicenter, randomized studies for several of the primary indications,” noted Dr. Chris Maples and Dr. Moss Mendelson of Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, in the Emergency Medicine report. “Data are conflicting, particularly on carbon monoxide poisoning, crush injuries and some soft tissue infections. Some trials demonstrate benefit while others show no difference.”

Problems and Risks

One problem in conducting good studies is the difficulty of randomly assigning patients into treatment and control groups in a way that “blinds” them to the group they are in, Dr. Charles S. Graffeo, a specialist in hyperbaric medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, said in an interview. Another problem is finding enough patients with the same condition, which is crucial in gathering statistically significant data.

Dr. Graffeo said there was “a good theoretical basis and some promising evidence that hyperbaric oxygen therapy could help treat clots on the retina, acute frostbite, recluse spider bites and thermal burns.”

“But there are just not enough scientific studies,” he said. “Conducting controlled clinical trials of hyperbaric oxygen is a bit more challenging than testing drugs.”

He cautioned patients to steer clear of independent hyperbaric centers owned by a single doctor or small medical group that is not affiliated with a major hospital or medical school. Commenting on claims commonly made by such clinics, he said: “No legitimate organization would condone treating cerebral palsy with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I haven’t seen anything that is even potentially promising to support such a use. If I had a C.P. child, I wouldn’t even consider it.”

Furthermore, the therapy is not without risks, though most are mild and usually short-lived and there has been no documented fatality in more than 75 years of use in North America. The risks include ear and sinus pain, low blood sugar, nearsightedness that can last for weeks, and anxiety attacks resulting from confinement in the chamber. Also, the therapy is clearly dangerous for some patients, including those with a collapsed lung and those receiving chemotherapy with cisplatinum or adriamycin. The therapy may also be hazardous for pregnant women and people with poorly controlled asthma or active cancer, among others.

Established Benefits

Hyperbaric oxygen can be life-saving for patients with the bends, like divers who have surfaced too quickly. For those suffering from severe carbon monoxide poisoning, the most rigorous study so far found that three hyperbaric treatments decreased cognitive damage later. Traumas like crush injuries and thermal burns that deprive tissues of adequate oxygen also benefit from high-oxygen therapy, as do life-threatening infections called necrotizing fasciitis, if the condition is treated in its early stages, the experts in Virginia reported. The therapy may also be useful for sepsis, a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection in the blood and tissues.

Dr. Graffeo said the therapy was useful in treating diabetic foot ulcers and bone infections. It is beneficial for patients whose tissues were damaged by radiation therapy — cancer patients, for example, who can develop oxygen-deficient wounds that do not heal well. Hyperbaric oxygen promotes the release of growth hormone and helps to form blood vessels in irradiated tissue, he said.

A study published last September in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics found hyperbaric oxygen helpful for patients with radiation proctitis, which can cause bleeding, rectal ulcers and loss of bowel control. Though the costly treatment can involve as many as 40 two-hour sessions, “the net effect is reversal of the problem in the majority of patients, which in the end is cost-saving and greatly improves quality of life,” said Mr. Clarke, whose foundation sponsored the study.

Oxygen therapy is being tested in patients with new diagnoses of head or neck cancer to increase the tumor’s sensitivity to radiation treatments, Mr. Clarke said. Future studies will test benefits to patients with cancers of the larynx, skin and gynecological organs.

“The most important question to answer, in addition to cost-effectiveness,” he said, “is whether the therapeutic benefit lasts and clearly improves patients’ quality of life.”