How HBOT Helps In Treating Traumatic Brain Injury
What causes an adverse effect on our body other than a disease? The answer to this question is simple — “an injury”, or to be precise, “a trauma.”
A “trauma” refers to any kind of injury, which damages or causes harm to the body of an individual. It affects both the physical and mental aspects of an individual, depending upon its type and degree of severity. If one suffers a brain trauma, its effects can be devastating.
What Is Traumatic Brain Injury?
Traumatic Brain Injury refers to an acute injury relating to the brain. Traumatic Brain Injury is related to a multitude of symptoms. It is similar to any other injury, However, it is complex by nature and needs to be addressed in time before it reaches crisis proportions. Symptoms may either appear immediately or may not appear for a long time (for days or weeks) following an injury.
The primary causes for damages to the brain are attributed to stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The latter is responsible for about 2 million deaths annually in the United States. The recovery programs which are aimed at improving the quality of life among patients with brain damage have seen a partial success.
How Is Traumatic Brain Injury Different From Any Other Injury?
There are certain factors which differentiate a brain injury from any other injury. If there is an injury to any part of the body other than the brain, it can heal up. However, an injury to the brain does not heal up on its own.
While the effects of a physical injury are limited to the part of the body which is injured, an injury to the brain brings with itself, some abrupt changes, including changes in mental abilities and the personality of an individual.
What Happens When A Patient Suffers A Brain Trauma?
When a patient suffers a stroke or a mental trauma, the neurons get affected and this stalls the activity of brain cells, thereby making them inactive. The energy in the affected neurons may still keep them alive, but they become dysfunctional. They need more energy to start sending electric signals to the brain.
The brain uses only twenty percent of the total amount of oxygen present in the body. This can only help operate a maximum of 5–10% of neurons at any given point of time. More energy brings about a stimulation of neurons and leads to the process of regeneration. An increased supply of oxygen is required to energize neurons to revert the damage.
HBOT — An Effective Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury
HBOT therapy has come as a revelation to patients with trautmatic brain injury. A study reveals that the therapy possesses the capacity to restore the neurological function among the brain tissues that are affected by the onset of a traumatic injury, a stroke, or any other metabolic disorder. It helps boost the process of restoration of brain activity.
Speaking of treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury, HBOT therapy comes across as an obvious choice for its numerous benefits. It has gained in popularity over the last decade. The therapy involves a total (100%) intake of oxygen inside a body chamber. This is known to effect far-reaching changes in helping a patient recover from a number of conditions, traumatic brain injury in particular.
In HBOT therapy, the amount of oxygen in a body chamber is increased by ten times the amount of oxygen which reaches brain in normal condition. Increased levels of oxygen reach the brain , which stimulate the inactive neurons. The neurons start connecting to brain readily and this marks the beginning of the gradual reversal of the damage.
The study advocates that HBOT has the capacity to induce neuroplasticity, which helps repair brain functions which are chronically impaired. This, in turn, helps improve the quality of life of patients with complex problems related to brain damage.