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Cerebral Palsy affects one in every four hundred children and until recently it was assumed that no treatment could actually improve the neurological condition of these children’s damaged brains. There is universal agreement that oxygen administered under pressure, (hyperbaric oxygen or HBO) can provide oxygen to the tissue which previously appeared impossible to repair. Studies and case histories of brain injured patients from Russia, China, Brazil and the U.S.A. show a restoration of function after HBO therapy even when administered many years after the damage was caused. Computerised brain scans clearly illustrate the improved cerebral blood level after HBO therapy.
In 1995 a small pilot study of HBO therapy was conducted in the U.K. which showed similar improvements in a group of seriously brain injured children and the Hyperbaric Oxygen Trust was then founded. The study was reported in a national newspaper and immediately generated over one thousand enquiries.
The Trust installed a small chamber in the South of England, and began evaluating and treating children , subsequently making referrals to the sixty existing regional H.B.O units run by the Multiple Sclerosis Federation.
The Charity continued to investigate further methods to augment the depressed nutrition of the uninjured part of the brain (as indicated by SPECT scan) through both physical and directly biochemical approaches. It offers HBO, coupled with nutritional and physical programmes as a further option to parents and individuals.
After a recent symposium, Russian work with metabolic amino acids was presented and later investigated in depth. Evidence from a pilot study of fourteen children strongly suggested that a combination of HBO plus amino acid therapy may enhance results and the charity has accordingly undertaken to offer the option of integrating the two therapies.
