Five million people in the United States live with traumatic brain injuries. These injuries have no cure and have deeply affected their lives and futures. Researchers at Louisiana State University (LSU) are studying a treatment that they hope could make a real difference: hyperbaric oxygen, the same treatment used for divers with decompression sickness.
General Maney says that in August 2005, while he was driving in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb exploded: "everything went red, then black," and he found himself flying through the air. He survived, but his brain was injured, leaving him with trouble speaking, finding words and expressing his thoughts, among other symptoms.
When he learned there was no standard treatment, he agreed to try hyperbaric oxygen, in which patients breathe pure oxygen under pressure in a sealed chamber. After 90 sessions over four months, he felt a striking improvement in his thinking and in finding words.
Paul Harch, MD, clinical professor at the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans, has studied hyperbaric oxygen in more than 500 patients, including people with neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease. "I found that high doses of oxygen help the brain repair itself," he says, "and I saw general improvement in most functions." He believes it could help many of the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with brain injuries.
The treatment was still experimental, cost about $200 per session and wasn't covered by insurance.
Update: later controlled trials in service members with mild brain injury found that patients improved about as much with a sham (low-pressure air) treatment as with hyperbaric oxygen, so its benefit remains unproven and it isn't a standard treatment for brain injury.
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