Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (Hbot)
This describes some of the problems that are treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
My first observation of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) was in Port Elizabeth where I observed someone with an injured arm undergoing treatment in a chamber.
The treatment involves the breathing in of oxygen whilst the patient is under a higher gaseous pressure than normal. This can be accomplished by placing the patient in a chamber which is pressurised by pumping in air. At the same time the patient breathes in oxygen. This can help in the healing in many cases.
Used in decompression sickness the higher pressure causes the gas bubbles in the blood to decrease in size, so helping the patient.
Henry’s law, found in chemistry books, states that the mass of gas which is dissolved by a given volume of a liquid at constant temperature is proportional to the pressure of the gas. By increasing the pressure around the patient more oxygen dissolves in the plasma.
Some problems that are listed for treatment by HBOT are:
Skin grafts
Problem wounds
Crush injuries
Gangrenous infection
Radiation injury
Intracranial abscesses
Thermal burns
HBOT is toxic to anaerobic bacteria.
The treatment can be traced back to the 1600s when increased air pressure was used to treat patients. The extent of effectiveness is controversial, but in the United States it is approved for many conditions and I have personally heard good reports about it in South Africa.
References: Medscape, Wikipedia, The Penguin Dictionary of Chemistry
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