Wound Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Experience our care and understand why we are different.
Hyperbaric
Chambers
Encompass Healthcare and Wound Medicine in West Bloomfield, Michigan offers Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). While many hospitals offer Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, at Encompass Healthcare, we make this medical service available to our patients in our award-winning outpatient office. This means that patients of Dr. Bruce Ruben at Encompass Healthcare do not have to go to the hospital.
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How It Works
Encompass Healthcare’s Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy uses a special chamber that is pressurized with 100% pure oxygen to get high levels of oxygen into your body. The high concentration exceeds by as much as ten times the level of oxygen that can be carried to a non-healing wound by blood alone. When utilized as a medical therapy, oxygen therapy in high doses can help heal bone infections, brain abscesses, and heal radiation damaged soft tissue. We have two hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers inside of our office at The Lakes Building, making us unique. Our outpatient setting means that you can receive your hyperbaric oxygen therapy safely without going to the hospital.
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HBOT also promotes the healing of chronic wounds and can save lives in certain conditions. Most recently, HBOT has been approved for sudden one-sided (unilateral) hearing loss.
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Our Facility
We have two hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers inside of our office at The Lakes Building, making us unique. Our outpatient setting means that you can receive your hyperbaric oxygen therapy safely without going to the hospital.
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Monoplace vs. Multiplace Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Chambers
Encompass Healthcare and Wound Medicine’s hyperbaric oxygen therapy chambers are monoplace chambers which means that you get your own, private chamber rather than going into a large, multi-place chamber, usually found in hospitals. Although they both work equally well, the benefits of our monoplace hyperbaric chambers are:
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1. Unlike in a hospital, you get individualized attention from our hyperbaric technician who is in the room and available via both sight and intercom during the entire “dive.”
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2. You schedule your own, convenient time for your dive based around your schedule, rather than having to be assigned a time based on many others’ schedules.
3. TV and DVDs are available to you to help the time pass quickly. Monoplace chambers give you the VIP treatment in hyperbaric!
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15 Approved Uses of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Currently, there are 15 medical conditions approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). They are:
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Air or Gas Embolism: An air or gas embolism is when air gets into the arteries either by diving or an invasive medical procedure that punctures an artery or lung.
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Decompression Sickness: This is brought on when a diver ascends too quickly and does not allow the oxygen in the body to expand at a safe rate.
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Gas Gangrene: Rapidly developing muscle tissue loss due to flesh-eating bacteria.
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Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.
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Crush Injury: An acute extremity crush injury caused by heavy equipment. This is an acute intervention used within the first 72 hours of trauma prevents limb loss.
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Compartment Syndrome and Other Acute Traumatic Ischemia.
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Compartment Syndrome: Following traumatic injury, the trauma causes severe high pressure in the muscle compartment resulting in insufficient blood supply to the muscles and nerves.
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Acute Traumatic Ischemia: Trauma-induced, sudden loss of blood supply to tissues.
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Arterial Insufficiencies: When arteries are insufficient to carry blood to the affected site including the eyes and selected non-healing wounds.
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Intracranial Abscess: These abscesses of the brain are common in patients with abnormal immune systems.
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Necrotizing Soft Tissue.
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Severe Anemia: Any acute, severe blood loss from a wound
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Skin Grafts and Flaps: Grafts and flaps of skin and other tissue (cartilage, bone, fat) are used in reconstructive surgery. In some cases, blood supply to the graft or flap is compromised, causing complications.
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Burn Injury.
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Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (one-sided hearing loss): This is the latest approved indication added and is defined as a hearing loss of at least 30 dB over at least three contiguous frequencies, occurring within three days.
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Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy:
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) Can Heal Tissue Damage From Radiation Treatments
For patients suffering radiation tissue damage either from cancer treatments or other medical reasons, radiation tissue damage is an FDA-approved indication for HBOT and is frequently covered by insurance.
Unfortunately, radiation therapy can extend beyond the target cancer and also damage normal organs and tissues. This can result in conditions like persistent rectal bleeding, mandible (jaw) bone disease, and other soft tissue radiation burns leading to non-healing wounds.
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The Benefits of Using Hyperbaric Oxygen to Treat Radiation Tissue Damage
• HBOT increases oxygen, thus promoting tiny new blood vessels to grow inside and around the radiation site. As you grow more blood vessels, more oxygen rich blood is able to reach the affected area.
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• HBOT decreases swelling (edema) around the radiation site. Decreasing the swelling allows the blood to flow more freely to the area, bringing with it oxygen.
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• High oxygen levels increases the ability of the ‘infection fighting’ cells (white blood cells) to kill bacteria.