DEPTH Blog

Hyperbaric Medicine: How well do you know HBO?

Here is the final blog from our month long focus of celebrating Hyperbaric Awareness Month.
Thank you #HyperbaricAware #hyperbaricawareUSA and #UHMS

 NOTE: While these are effectively ‘snapshots’ of each indication we strongly recommend a thorough reading of each chapter in the UHMS Indications resources to appreciate the full view for HBO2 treatment of these conditions.

Continuing to celebrating Hyperbaric Medicine in May as Hyperbaric Awareness Month with the second part in this series: Hyperbaric Medicine Indications & Patient Selection. This article is from  #HyperbaricAware #hyperbaricawareUSA

Celebrating Hyperbaric Medicine in May as Hyperbaric Awareness Month continues with #hyperbaricawareUSA #HyperbaricAware. Let's dive deeper into HBOT indications and patient selection with this blog from Hyperbaric Aware:

What is Hyperbaric Medicine? - Did you know that Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) treatments are administered by breathing pure oxygen in a pressurized environment, usually in a hyperbaric treatment room or chamber? Let’s spread the word about HBOT and its benefits this May! #hyperbaricAwareUSA #HyperbaricAware

The historical application of air under pressure and its scientific use in modern medicine.

HISTORY OF HYPERBARICS

BEST PUBLISHING COMPANY
Spotlight on Harry T. Whelan, M.D.

BEST PUBLISHING COMPANY

This week Best Publishing Company releases the 4th Edition of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, Guidelines for Hyperbaric Facility Operations. This  edition is edited by Derall Garrett, CHT-A, HC-S, Director, Hyperbaric Facility Accreditation and Donna A. Winn, BSN, RN, ACHRN.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy exerts its beneficial effects by elevating both the partial pressure of inspired O2 and the hydrostatic pressure. The latter leads to compression of all gas-filled spaces in the body and is helpful in treating diseases in which gas bubbles are present in the body, such as intravascular embolism and intravascular or intratissue bubbles in decompression sickness. Interestingly, the majority of patients treated with HBO2 experience clinical improvements from the elevated O2 partial pressures and do not suffer from bubble-induced injuries. An elevated O2 partial pressure in certain tissues leads to increased production of reactive O2 species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) due to hyperoxia. Previously, research studies have demonstrated that the clinical efficacy from HBO2 comes from the modulation of intracellular transduction cascades, leading to synthesis of
growth factors and promoting wound healing and ameliorating post-ischemic and post-inflammatory injuries.

BEST PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Publishing Educational Books on Diving, Wound Care,
and Hyperbaric Medicine since 1966. 

NEW RELEASE- Hyperbaric Medicine Practice 5th Edition

We had entered a dense fog bank! I had a rather helpless feeling, as a boy of 18, guiding 2,300 tons of steel into the unknown at ten knots, with no way of notifying anyone. Fortunately after a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, the mate returned to the bridge. Flipping on the radar on the port side of the wheelhouse, he remarked, "Looks like we've got a bit of thick weather." He stepped out on the bridge wing and blew his police whistle to alert Kalle Holm, my watch partner. Kalle immediately stuck his head over the top of the bridge ladder and was ordered to the bow to stand lookout. 

When the radar had warmed up, the mate said, "Looks like we've got another ship out there. Give her five degrees starboard."

I heard the ship's bell strike three times . . . It was the other ship's bow lookout and we were directly in his path! I saw a huge bow as high as our wheelhouse loom out of the fog!"

The above is just one of the hair-raising experiences described by Dr. Kindwall as he writes of his time in the merchant marines, and via Yale and Harvard, running a safe-house for the CIA, submarine school, patrol on an early Polaris nuclear submarine, and work with "sandhogs" in compressed air tunnel construction. 

Find more details here about the book, "Unexpected Odyssey, From Merchant Sailor to Hyperbaric Physician" by Eric P. Kindwall, MD

Although the incidence of clostridial myonecrosis infections has dropped precipitously in recent decades, it always remins a threat in injuries where contamination and severe tissue disruption have occurred. The decreased incidence of clostridial myonecrosis is attributed to the increased diligence of clinicians in preventing clostridial organisms from proliferating. This has been realized through the immediate initiation of antibiotics in open injuries, the use of prophylactic antibiotics in surveries, and the appreciation of the value of meticulous debridements in injuries where amssive contamination (e.g., farm-related), severe trauma to tissues (e.g., combat-related), and tissue death from hypoxia have occurred. 

Carbon monoxide exposed patients commonly present with nonspecific symptoms that mimic influenza-like illnesses (Table 1). Symptoms typically include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomting, weakness, and fatigue. The most common symptom reports is headache.

Photo Caption: The decompression chamber aboard the USS Dixon where David Scalia suffered his third cardio-respiratory arrest. Dr. Greg Adkission successfully resuscitated David and remained with him in the chamber for 12 hours.

More than 100 years ago, Sorbonne Professor Paul Bert, the father of pressure physiology, explained, “All symptoms, from the slightest to those that bring on sudden death, are the consequences of the liberation of bubbles of nitrogen in the blood [on-gassing], and even in the tissues, when compression has lasted long enough. The great protection is slowness of decompression [off-gassing].”