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Hyperbaric chambers could help those with TBI

Air Force doctors at the San Antonio Military Medical Center think they have found a way to help service members who suffer traumatic brain injuries: time in the hyperbaric chambers used to treat patients who suffer carbon monoxide poisoning and scuba divers who get “the bends.”

In a study expected to wrap up this summer, Col. (Dr.) Robert Michaelson, the chief of hyperbaric medicine at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, and Dr. E. George Wolf, a staff physician there, are testing the theory that hyperbaric oxygen can repair damage to brain cells after mild or moderate head injuries.

“There has been a considerable amount of anecdotal information and case reports that it became evident that something needed to be looked at for hyperbaric oxygen and TBI,” Wolf said.

Inside a hyperbaric chamber, a patient breathes 100 percent oxygen under different amounts of pressure. The pressure created inside the chamber causes the oxygen inside the blood to dissolve, allowing more oxygen to flow throughout the body.

Michaelson and Wolf said they hope their study will show that the extra oxygen re-energizes dead or damaged brain cells. Research shows that extra oxygen could also help recruit stem cells to repair brain cell damage, Michaelson said. Repairing those cells could improve a service member’s ability to concentrate, recognize and remember.

Doctors will survey 50 service members with TBI. Each service member will receive 30 treatments inside the hyperbaric chamber over six weeks. Half of the service members will actually receive the hyperbaric oxygen treatments; the other half will be the control group.

Last March, the Air Force bought two new hyperbaric chambers for the hyperbaric center at Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. One is a multiplace — accommodating up to six patients — and the other is for one stabilized patient.

The multiplace is used for “more acute and critical patients requiring constant hands-on care,” said Senior Master Sgt. Darryl Swartz, superintendent of the hospital’s Hyperbaric Medicine Division.

Dr. Gaylan Rockswold, chief of neurosurgical services at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota, has treated TBI patients with hyperbaric oxygen therapy since the 1980s. He just completed his fourth study on the treatment with his daughter, who also is a neurosurgeon. The two focused on life-threatening TBI cases.

The study, published in the Journal of Neurosurgery, found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy reduced the death rate on serious TBI cases from 33 percent to 17 percent.

Related reading

• Faster screening, treatment for TBI ahead