How does hyperbaric oxygen therapy help patients with traumatic brain injuries or brain injuries in general?
Dr. Harch: There is a characteristic of severe traumatic brain injury where normally the blood flow and metabolism, like gasoline and RPMs in an engine, are tightly coupled. In a severe injury, blood flow and metabolism are uncoupled, so blood is rushing through the blood vessels and the cells are damaged and essentially not working. There has never been, in the history of science, any drug or therapy that has been able to recouple this severe derangement until hyperbaric oxygen. It was demonstrated that a single treatment in acute severe traumatic brain injury, in the first few days after injury, could recouple the severe derangement in the brain. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a remarkable discovery. What are you finding when you treat people with hyperbaric oxygen? What does the oxygen do to their brains? Dr. Harch: A variety of things from the acute injury. Some of the machinery of the cells can be so damaged that they can only live in a kind of low RPM state. The cells are just humm
