Hyperbaric Medicine

One definition of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) is as follows: "a mode of medical treatment in which the patient is entirely enclosed in a pressure chamber, breathing oxygen at a pressure greater than one atmosphere" (Bakker, 1992, pp. 95-104). This definition obviously does not include the breathing of oxygen at a pressure of one atmosphere. In fact, the origins of HBO can be traced to the invention of the air pump. In 1664, the British physician, Henshaw, first used compressed air in a "specially equipped room called a 'Domicilium'" (Bakker, 1992, pp. 95-104). Oxygen, however, wasn't described until some years later. In 1775, Priestley described the element, and predicted its therapeutic use. Since its discovery, oxygen has perhaps been more extensively applied than any other known therapeutic a

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ne); (4) acute traumatic ischemias (e.g., crush injury); (5) decompression sickness; (6) wound healing; (7) blood loss; (8) necrotizing soft tissue infections; (9) osteomyelitis; (10) radiation tissue damage; (11) skin grafts; and (12) thermal burns (Bakker, 1992, pp. 95-104). With therapeutic HBO, oxygen is administered at an ambient pressure greater than 1 ATA (Camporesi, Moon, & Grande, 1990, p. 206). In general, blood transports oxygen by two different mechanisms: (1) chemically bound to hemoglobin in the erythrocytes; and (2) physically dissolved in plasma (i.e., according to Henry's Law). At 1 ATA of breathing air, hemoglobin is typically 97 percent saturated with oxygen. Hence, the total oxygen content of the blood cannot be raised very much by saturating the hemoglobin to 100 percent. Rather, HBO bypasses the blood's specific oxygen-carrying mechanisms and, instead, overloads its dissolved oxygen compartment (Camporesi, Moon, & Grande, 1990, p. 206). When patients are treated with HBO, two physiologic events occur: (1) there is an elevation of pressure; and (2) there is an elevation of arterial PO2 (PaO2). The actions of increased pressure affect enclosed spaces (e.g., the middle ear, the intestine, etc.). Addi
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Approximate Word count = 1747
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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