The feeling is like being on a plane trip, even with your feet firmly on the ground. But what really happens is a kind of deep dive inside a submarine. A dive that should only happen because you need to treat or recover from a health problem. In the new hyperbaric chamber at Hospital da Luz Lisboa (HLL), patients ‘dive’ for 110 minutes to treat difficult wounds, to recover more quickly from surgeries and sports injuries, to reverse neurological injuries. Therapeutic indications with clinical evidence are increasing and the number of patients who can undergo this treatment, diving 15 meters deep in a hyperbaric chamber, grows every day. As the coordinator of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at HLL, internist and intensive care physician Cláudia Febra, explains, “ today, hyperbaric medicine is a relatively common therapeutic resource in areas of medicine as diverse as traumatology and orthopedics, neurology, oncology, and is increasingly also more common in sports medicine” . Hospital da Luz Lisboa already has its new new generation multi-place hyperbaric chamber in operation – the first of its kind in the Iberian Peninsula -, equipment with capacity for 16 patients simultaneously and to reproduce a dive up to 15 meters deep, thus allowing “ patients breathe oxygen at a concentration five times greater than what they would breathe under normal conditions ”, explained Cláudia Febra, speaking to the newspaper Correio da Manhã, who recently visited the new Hyperbaric Medicine Center at Hospital da Luz. In this way, said the specialist, “ we ensure that oxygen reaches all tissues that are suffering from wounds, burns, sports trauma, inflammation in the bones and joints... It is even possible to help with treatments for newborns, who suffer neurological complications due to lack of oxygenation at the time of birth” . Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is therefore used to treat complications or diseases that result from poor oxygenation: Wounds that do not heal easily, Prolonged diabetic wounds; Surgical interventions with tissue flaps/implants that do not work; Wounds of patients who have poor circulation, who suffer from complicated arterial or venous disease; In oncology, in complications from radiotherapy (tissue burns, complications in the bladder, intestines, etc.; in fact, in the treatment of complications from radiotherapy in intra-abdominal structures, hyperbaric medicine is, in fact, first-line) . And also in hospital traumatology, neurology, endocrinology, among others. Treatments using this technology also allow for a considerable reduction in recovery time in months - which is especially relevant when it comes to sports injuries in high-level competitive athletes, for example -, being “a treatment that does not require great effort from the patient, just some availability of time. ” The clinical team at the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at Hospital da Luz Lisboa, made up of doctors, nurses and other specialized healthcare professionals with experience in this area, is already working at full steam, with the new hyperbaric chamber receiving patients since last September. Access to the Center can be made on your own initiative or by medical referral, for scheduled and unscheduled treatments, either on an outpatient basis or for people admitted to Hospital da Luz or other hospital units. The first step is always to schedule a Hyperbaric Medicine Consultation. During this consultation, the case is assessed, the possible indication for hyperbaric oxygen therapy is decided and the most appropriate treatment is prescribed, including: Number of treatment sessions; Duration of treatment sessions; Pressure used in each treatment. For evaluation in a hyperbaric medicine consultation, some tests are necessary, which must be carried out if results are not available within six months: electrocardiogram (ECG); Chest radiography (X-ray); and tympanogram.
