By Melissa Bailey, Director of Education
Sometimes medicine is birthed in the most unlikely of places. Studying the lives of milkmaids helped Edward Jenner discover the smallpox vaccine. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) owes its roots to a doctor who noticed that patients with heart disease had better outcomes when they lived closer to sea level than at high altitudes.
All it takes is one creative idea to start a healing process that has since helped thousands. Marie Curie, who discovered the radioactive elements radium and polonium, famously spoke:
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
Which leads us to our blog focus today: the Innovation of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.
HBOT is based on the simple fact that oxygen heals. During HBOT a patient is placed within a sealed chamber and given 100% oxygen in a pressurized environment. When you combine pressure and oxygen, the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream increases. In a sense, oxygen sends a breath of fresh air to injured tissue and speeds the healing process.
When a patient first enters the chamber, the process of compression begins. This is referred to as the “dive” giving homage to one of the more familiar uses for HBOT, treating deep-sea divers who suffer from decompression sickness when surfacing too quickly. A certified HBO technician monitors the progress of the dive and stays close at hand to make sure the patient inside the chamber is safe and comfortable.
Whether someone is entering a hyperbaric oxygen chamber or the doorway of a wound center, they just want the treatments to work. Wound Care Advantage consistently heals the majority of our patients within 6-8 weeks of treatment. Like pioneers of medicine before, we consistently combine creativity and persistence to heal patients quickly.
HBOT is just one area of wound care where industry leaders thought outside the box of traditional medicine. Today, we are continually updating our models, analyzing our healing rates and asking ourselves, “Can we do this better?” If we answer that question affirmatively, then we don’t hesitate to bring our patients better care.
If you think HBOT can benefit you and your wound, please call us! We can connect you to a wound care center where you can experience the healing benefits of exceptional wound care.
