(NEW) Scientific Definition of Hyperbaric Oxygen (HBO2) Therapy
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is the treatment of a disease or medical condition by the inhalation of near-100% (at least 95%) medical grade oxygen* at pressures greater than 1 atmosphere absolute (ATA) (101.3 kilopascals (kPa)) in a pressure vessel constructed for that purpose. . . [ UHMS, HBO Indications ]
Once Upon a Time, the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) defined HBO2 Therapy in a way that confused anyone knowledgeable about the laws of physics and biochemistry: (OLD) The UHMS defines hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) as an intervention in which an individual breathes near 100% oxygen intermittently while inside a hyperbaric chamber that is pressurized to greater than sea level pressure (1 atmosphere absolute, or ATA). For clinical purposes, the pressure must equal or exceed 1.4 ATA while breathing near 100% oxygen.
By redefining Hyperbaric Medicine to comply with current scientific research, decades of evidence-based and clinical medicine, and the laws of physics, the UHMS has done a service to service members suffering from brain wounds. As Dr Paul Harch put it in his latest research: “This scientific understanding of hyperbaric oxygen therapy has eluded the hyperbaric medicine field for 359 years, particularly in the last 60 years, and has been confused and thwarted by the arbitrary definition of HBOT at a minimum pressure of 1.4 ATA of 100% oxygen.”
The rethinking and updating of the medical properties of HBOT catapaults the last decade of research into the limelight due to the renewed emphasis by the DoD and Department of Veterans Affairs number one clinical priority: suicide prevention.
Both the DoD and the VA have declared that suicide prevention is their #1 clinical priority. Massive increases to budgets have occurred for research into new methods to identify, communicate about, respond to, account for, and deal with suicidal ideation. Yet not even one of the “new” awards for Suicide Prevention in Mission Daybreak, a $20 million grand challenge to reduce Veteran suicides, is focused on treatment of brain wounds or drug overprescription, two of the major identifiers of suicidally-prone service members. Not a word about treating and healing brain wounds, one of whose symptoms is suicidal ideation, nor that HBOT virtually eliminates suicide ideation.
One obvious reason for the neglect of the use of HBOT by the VA to help heal brain wounds is the negative pronouncements by the DoD/VA/Army stemming from their $126+ Million research. Conclusions in their findings, as opposed to the actual data from over 300 patients, is that “HBOT does not work.”
Well, no. The UHMS redefinition of Hyperbaric Oxygen kicks the struts out from beneath the government’s dependence on their “sham” and the statistical sleight-of-hand about the ineffectiveness of HBOT. Many others have already written extensively about the bogus sham [here and here.] But the action by the UHMS calls for a full public and legislative and oversight vetting of the truth about the proven safety and efficacy of HBOT for TBI and other brain insults.
One egregious example of the stacked-deck outcomes of Government-sponsored research relying on the OLD definition of HBOT can be found on the VA website; COL Scott Miller, Principle Investigator on an RCT, and commentator on the benefits of HBOT for TBI is just one of the apologists for the discredited science. COL Miller and Dr David Cifu lament that “the nail may not be in the coffin yet,” but they’re working on further disproof of the safety and efficacy of HBOT. In the same article, COL Miller deflects from the data: “interestingly enough, both the intervention and sham group showed mild improvement. . . . People did get better and we can’t ignore those results…. HBOT is a healing environment”
Two decades of erroneous findings can now be properly reported. The VA/HSR&D Evidence Synthesis Program in the VA issued an Evidence Brief on HBOT that must be rewritten in light of the updated information. The Congressional Research Service similarly has to inform members that research heretofore deemed “inconclusive” or in opposition to the use of HBOT for TBI is, in fact, conclusively positive. Data from government-sponsored studies demonstrate safety and efficacy.
(RE)education about the truth of the safety and efficacy of HBOT-for-TBI cannot begin soon enough. Taxxpayer dollars are being expended to understand the “placebo effects” of HBOT to explain the disconcerting fact that “people did get better.” Consultants to the VA invented the phrase “the ritual of HBOT” as a research topic to get to the bottom of the mystery of how so much improvement was recorded, even though “HBOT does not work.“
All is not lost. A humourous exchange between this author and one of the inventors of “the ritual of HBOT” placebo went this way. ” Doctor, you can save lots of time and money investigating rituals by taking brain injured veterans to St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome on Christmas eve for high Mass. Candles, incense, Gregorian chants, pomp and circumstance, vestments, heavenly singing, and the mystery of the
Gospels. The Catholic Church has the ritual part down. But if you want the brain wounded to heal, you better take a hyperbaric chamber with you.”
TreatNOW.org
Article cited from TreatNow.org