What is a Hyperbaric Chamber and How Does it help in Curing the Bends
A hyperbaric chamber is an isolation vessel where patients or victims suffering from a condition commonly referred to as the bends, sometimes referred to as decompression sickness can be helped to recover. Inside the chamber the patient is subjected to an oxygen rich atmosphere at higher pressure than the outside atmospheric pressure, required to compensate for the pressure differential from which the sufferer of decompression sickness has arrived.
Decompression sickness is commonly associated with divers both amateur and professional and is caused by the rapid decompression of the human body, or by the infusion of pressurized gas which can lead to a gas embolism. Other professions which are at risk from the bends are aviators, workers on oil and gas platforms who may be exposed to higher than normal pressure levels in some working environments, miners and construction workers working inside pressurised vessels. Less common victims or sufferers are those patients exposed to surgery where open blood vessels and soft tissue have decreased microcirculation or hypoxia.
Placing the patient or sufferer inside a decompression chamber cures decompression sickness and gas embolism by increasing the localised atmospheric pressure which in turn reduces the size of the gas bubbles in the patient’s body. Equally exposure to high pressure atmospheric conditions promotes improved transport of blood to downstream tissues. Because the infusion of micro gas bubbles can inhibit the oxygen supply to parts of the body such as the extremities (feet, hands etc) there is a serious risk posed to the patient of the onset of gangrene.
Because the human body is not designed to breathe an oxygen rich atmosphere as found in a decompression chamber, there has to be a supply of breathing air available which the patient can use periodically in order to prevent what is known as hyperbaric seizures.
Hyperbaric medicine has made many advances since decompression sickness was first isolated, and the first documented case of decompression sickness was observed in 1841, reported by a mining engineer who observed pain and muscle cramps among coal miners working in mine shafts air-pressurized to keep water out. It had been surmised some two hundred years prior to this. A devised treatment for decompression sickness was not first implemented until around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.
Training and hyperbaric chamber facilities are available for workers and medical staff involved with working environments where there is risk of someone contracting the bends. The Divers Emergency Service UK has a fully kitted out facility in London at Whipps Cross hospital. Log on to the website of http://www.londonhyperbaric.com for information about courses, and also for more detailed information about symptoms of decompression sickness and what immediate steps should be taken to assist patients and sufferers.
Processing your request, Please wait....
