Hyperbaric oxygen therapy in neurological diseases

Abstract:

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is an effective and widely applied method for treating numerous diseases and conditions, but is still insufficiently applied in neurology. Although HBOT has not demonstrated effectiveness in acute stroke, a positive effect of HBOT in a small number of studies has been clearly demonstrated in post-stroke. Treatment effectiveness was also demonstrated in Bell’s palsy, migraine attacks and vascular dementia. Although there is a possibility that HBOT could be useful as a method of migraine prophylaxis, confirmatory studies are insufficient. Furthermore, the efficacy of HBOT in the treatment of multiple sclerosis has not been proven. Although clinical studies on the use of HBOT in neurological diseases are scarce, published results have indicated that HBOT may exert a therapeutic effect under certain specific conditions. However, further studies are needed to develop and validate potential effective protocols for various neurological diseases and conditions.

Key words:
hyperbaric oxygen therapy; migraine; multiple sclerosis; stroke; vascular dementia