A team of doctors recently revealed that they managed to reverse brain damage in a two years old girl which was submerged under water for around 15 minutes. The specialists were able to do so by using oxygen therapy.
Back in February 2016, a two years old girl fell into a swimming pool and also drowned. As a result, her heart stopped beating on its own for around two hours. At the time of her discharge from the hospital, the girl was then unresponsive to all stimuli because of the lack of oxygen to the brain.
She was unable to speak, did not respond to commands, and was constantly squirming or shaking her head. An MRI revealed that she experienced cerebral atrophy.
To prevent further degeneration of the cerebral tissue, Dr. Paul Harch began a partial treatment. Dr. Harch is the Director of Hyperbaric Medicine at the LSU School of Medicine.
Fifty-five days after the drowning accident, the toddler began a daily, short duration treatment with 100 percent normobaric oxygen. Thanks to it, she started being more alert and awake and even stopped squirming.
Seventy-eight days after the incident, the two years old was placed on the second stage of treatment. This involved 40 sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) conducted over eight weeks.
According to reports, the child’s neurological improvement was easily visible before new sessions. The girl’s mother was reported as stating that, besides the girl’s coordination, the child was “near normal” after some ten HBOT sessions. After this point, she was also once again placed on physical therapy.
Ability to Reverse Brain Damage, a First Such Success Thanks to Oxygen
162 days after drowning, and after her last HBOT session, the girl presented a near-complete reversal of the cortical and white matter atrophy.
“The startling regrowth of tissue in this case occurred because we were able to intervene early in a growing child, before long-term tissue degeneration,” declared Dr. Harch in a press release.
He continues by pointing that this is a singular case, the first and only of its type yet. Still, it may nonetheless help indicate that the low-risk medical treatment used may have “a profound effect” on the function recovery in patients that suffered similar accidents. Still, more studies will have to be conducted before reaching a conclusion.
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