Support Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Cerebral Palsy and Make Elisha's Wish Come True

When Elisha was born on February 17th 2007 he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, which resulted in Cerebral Palsy. Since then Eli has had over 10 brain surgeries and yet he still smiles and gives hugs to everyone he meets.  Elisha is an inspiration by how he loves life no matter the circumstances. 

Harch HBOT for Infant Problems with the Brain or Brain Trauma:
Shaken Baby Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy CP, Infant Brain Injury,
Infant Neurological Disorders

HBOT for an Infant/Child Brain Injury

According to Dr. Harch, "HBOT for infants is no different than HBOT for adults except that infants can be exquisitely sensitive to oxygen and thus, require careful dosing." In the early 1990s Dr. Harch began an investigation of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in pediatric brain injury.  Beginning with the first cerebral palsy (CP) child he applied HBOT and SPECT brain blood flow imaging (discussed below) to any child with a neurological diagnosis primarily involving the brain. What he found was that HBOT acted like a generic drug on a multitude of different brain disorders in children, including genetic disorders. In those seminal years he found that children as young as six months could be treated safely. That 6 month old girl was a shaken baby who was treated four months after her injury when she was finally stable enough to travel.  She had seizures, was paralyzed, blind, and very fragile. By the end of the first two months of treatment she was more alert and aware, responding to her mother, developing vision, and free of seizures.  Dr. Harch then took her off her seizure medications and she remained seizure free. Her case is published in the Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine, by K.K. Jain, 3rd Edition, Chapter 18.  Her remarkable and shocking brain scans can also be viewed in the congressional testimony that Dr. Harch gave to the House of Representatives in 2002. That testimony is featured on www.hbot.com  (congressional testimonies) In addition, a book has been written about her case called I Am Still Standing, by Sue Ann Worsley (Publish America).  In the book the grandmother recounts the family's courageous trek to New Orleans to be the first child in the world to be treated with HBOT for shaken baby syndrome. Their efforts were rewarded with a baby who regained vision, a relationship with her mother, and eventually movement in her legs. 

What these early cases showed was that brain injury in infants could be successfully and safely treated. Since that time hundreds of children with over 50 different neurological diagnoses have been treated by Dr. Harch. What is important, however, is that different brain injuries and diagnoses can require different doses of HBOT. Seizure disorders, for example, if treated at higher pressures and higher frequency of treatments can be aggravated by HBOT.  Similarly, autistic patients can be very sensitive to HBOT and require individual dosing. Since the initial safe treatment of so many children with brain injury at Dr. Harch's clinic in New Orleans thousands and thousands of children have been treated in the U.S. and worldwide by Dr. Neubauer and other physicians.

HYPERBARIC OXYGEN THERAPY IN CEREBRAL PALSY

AND PEDIATRIC NEUROLOGY:

A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE
PAUL G. HARCH, M.D.

INTRODUCTION

HBOT in the Management of Cerebral Palsy

Virginia Neubauer, Richard Neubauer and Paul Harch

An entry from K.K. Jain's Textbook Of Hyperbaric Medicine

Causes of Cerebral Palsy
Oxygen Therapy in the Neonatal Period
Treatment of Cerebral Palsy with HBOT
Conclusions

Causes of Cerebral Palsy
 

Hyperbaric Medicine Officially Enters the Prohibition Era

An article specifically written for ”Hyperbaric Medicine Today”
in their “Physicians’ Forum Counterpoint” feature.
From Volume 1 Issue 1
Research in Hyperbaric Medicine by Dr. Eric P. Kindwall

Dr. Paul G Harch writes:

The Physicians' Forum article in the inaugural issue is a comprehensive discourse with many good points on the legality of off-label HBOT, research funding, a registry, recommendations for patients seeking off-label treatment, and standardized testing/documentation. However, these points are nearly lost in an extremely confusing, obfuscating tangle of terms definitions, and concepts that is partly based on a double standard. Despite the confusion, the message and threat to the entire hyperbaric medicine community was transmitted so loud and clear in the final paragraph that I was moved to declare this the “Prohibition Era Of Hyperbaric Medicine” It appears that the purpose of the article is to alter the historical method of the practice of medicine and hyperbaric medicine by jeopardizing a physician's membership in a medical society should they dare to use HBOT for an off-label indication.

The article begins with a comment on “evidence-based medicine”' and then proceeds to speak about peer-reviewed, randomized, prospective, controlled, double-blinded trials (RCPT's) to assess validity of scientific information. The double standard in these two paragraphs can be appreciated in the 1996 approval of intracerebral abscess (ICA), (cerebral abscess, subdural empyema, and epidural empyema) by the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Committee to the accepted indications list. The argument in the 1996 HBOT Committee Report was based on thirteen cases treated off-label, ten of which were published in the Journal of Hyperbaric Medicine, 1989. These were combined with six cases generated after years of open solicitation from an influential HBOT Committee member to any UHMS physician who had treated cerebral abscess with hyperbaric oxygen. These last six cases are strongly biased since very few physicians are willing to volunteer a personal/professional failure, i.e., a hyperbaric oxygen treated cerebral abscess case that died. The mortality from these twenty cases was compared to the latest figures, 1991, on the historical declining mortality rate in cerebral abscess to achieve statistical significance and approve cerebral abscess as an accepted indication. To summarize, the accepted indication, cerebral abscess, is a diagnosis composed of three separate diseases, based on twenty non controlled cases, none of which appear to be on an JRB-approved protocol, all of which were apparently treated off-label, only ten of which are in a peer reviewed journal, six of whicl1 are highly biased, non-published solicitations and the argument for which is based on a comparison to a historical declining mortality rate. Regardless of the strong pathophysiological argument this is weak science, especially when compared to data discussed below. To subsequently argue, in the Physicians' Forum article's lead paragraph for evidence-based medicine from randomized prospective controlled research published in peer-reviewed journals as an intro and backdrop to a critique of HBOT/cerebral palsy and off-label use of HBOT, is a double-standard.

The double standard is more apparent in the article's review of HBOT/cerebral palsy data. The article disparages the HBO treatment data of cerebral palsy children by labeling it "anecdotal." This "anecdotal" experience includes six reports: 240 "anecdotal" cases by Machado, a single "anecdotal" case reported by me in 1994 (the first cerebral palsy case treated with HBOT in North America), three "anecdotal" cases reported by Dr. Neubauer and me at a hyperbaric meeting in Buenos Aires in 1996, an additional "anecdotal" case reported by Neubauer and me in the Third Edition of K.K. Jain 's Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine in July/99, 18 "anecdotal" predominantly IRB cases reported by me at the Boca Raton July 1999 Conference, and now 25 IRB "anecdotal" cases reported by Montgomery at McGill in 1999. While a number of the above reports are abstracts, three of the studies (Machado, Harch, and Montgomery) are prospective and controlled (each patient serving as his own control). The Montgomery study also used blinded examiners and was published in a peer reviewed journal. This constitutes greater experience for HBOT treatment of cerebral palsy than for the nineteen "anecdotal" HBOT/ICA cases which generated inclusion on the accepted indications list in 1996. To disparage the evidence for HBOT/CP is inconsistent.

1st International Symposium on Cerebral Palsy & The Brain Injured Child
July 23, 24 & 25, 1999
Boca Raton, Florida, USA
Richard A. Neubauer, M.D.• Program Chairman
 

The Symposium Agenda 

Kevin Barrett, M.D., F.A.C.P. Ð Professor of Hyperbaric Medicine
University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA

Abstract

Authors: Kevin F. Barrett M.D., Kevan P. Corson CHt, Jon T. Mader, M.D.

Title: Pediatric Cerebral Palsy treated by 1.5 ATA hyperbaric oxygen therapy, a pilot study.

Objective: To determine if 1.5 ATA hyperbaric oxygen therapy can ameliorate the neurologic deficits associated with pediatric cerebral palsy.