health & fitness

Bryan Scott, safety for the Buffalo Bills, with a hyperbaric chamber. Do you ever wish all those nagging aches and pains you developed on the court would just go away? While traditional therapies have been shown to improve injuries with the help of rest and time, new high-tech remedies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy have been shown to get patients with nagging injuries back to practice in half the time. Though hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been around for centuries, and professional athletes have been using it for years, only recently has it been used in mainstream sports medicine. Terrell Owens, one of the most famous and controversial football players in the NFL, used hyperbaric oxygen therapy to recover from a 16-week injury in only six weeks?just in time to help the Eagles face off against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX. Over the past decade, participation in sports and recreational activities has risen 56 March/april 2010

The Benefits of

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

among every age group, growing proportionally with the number of sports injuries plaguing participants. Unfortunately, a primary cost related to injury recovery is the time lost from participating in sports activities and resuming normal functional activity. This time gap has compelled health care professionals to seek more efficient and effective therapeutic interventions?such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy?in treating such injuries. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps to facilitate a quicker return to pre-injury activity levels, as well as improve the short- and long-term prognosis of the injury. Mild hyperbaric therapy speeds recovery from sports injuries, gives the athlete faster recoveries from workouts and increases energy levels both on and off the field. By providing more oxygen at the cellular level, healing is rapid, energy levels are high and the athlete is able to focus and perform at peak levels. Many athletes report By Michael Hatrak, D.C. less lactic acid buildup after hyperbaric therapy, as well as greater endurance and less muscle fatigue during practices. The pressurized environment of the chamber allows many athletes to recover more quickly from sports injuries irritated by swelling, dehydration and ischemia. The pressure decreases swelling while increasing blood flow to restricted areas. A higher concentration of oxygen in the blood at the cellular level allows healing and reparation to occur at a much faster rate. Medicine?s most efficient method of transporting oxygen to cells throughout the body, both safely and painlessly, hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing concentrated oxygen inside a specially designed pressurized chamber (hyperbaric means ?under pressure?). A typical hyperbaric oxygen session lasts 45 minutes to two hours. During this time, patients sit or recline comfortably in a pressurized hyperbaric chamber

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