Bolen Report: Traumatic Brain Injury and Hyperbaric Oxygen TherapyK. Paul Stoller, MD, FACHM
www.incurable-me.comChief of Hyperbaric Medicine, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy San Francisco
www.hbotsf.orgHyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) saturates the body�s tissues with oxygen
using a pressure vessel. HBOT is most often recognized as the treatment
for De-Compression Sickness (DCS) or �the bends.�
DCS causes significant neurological injury and post initial injury. The
dysfunctional changes are virtually identical to those caused by trauma.
Thus oxygen under pressure has been used to treat neurological injuries
since 1937, almost eighty years.
No one has found a replacement or substitute treatment for the bends that
works as well as oxygen. HBOT results in a 95 percent acute treatment cure
rate for DCS in all of the navies of the world.
Combining HBOT with other therapies that help brain-injured patients
enhances the effect of those treatments and makes these other therapies
less costly, while creating additional recovery in any given patient.
An increase of one-half atmosphere will raise the oxygen levels in plasma
seven times to twelve times normal (700 percent to 1,200 percent). Under
this increased pressure, oxygen acts like a drug- and DNA-signaling agent.
This treatment�s mechanisms of action simply follow the general gas laws
for saturating liquids with a gas, similar to the way Sodastream� saturates
water with carbon dioxide.
No one yet has found a substitute for oxygen in human physiological
processes, and any injury caused by a lack of oxygen can be expected to
benefit from HBOT with the right oxygen dosage. Saturating with oxygen is
a safe procedure when all of the correct protocols are followed, and
significant side effects are extremely rare.
The History of Hyperbaric Medicine�
The history of hyperbaric medicine reaches back to the year 1620 when
Drebbel developed a one-atmosphere diving bell, and forty years later Boyle
joined forces with Gay-Lussac to develop the general gas law.
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