A Quick Brief Guide to Buy the Best Hyperbaric Chamber for Animals

If the disease process does not respond to oxygen, there is no harm in offering therapy as long as you can figure things out by assessing the severity of the disease and getting diagnoses. Short-term therapy does not require moisturizing, but long-term treatment should help prevent the epithelium from drying out, which can cause infections.

If it is your only option in a pinch, you can create an oxygen cage by putting saran foil or tape over the cage door and pumping oxygen through it. The provisional oxygen cages available range from the independent units used for this purpose to the Plexiglas panels that replace the door. You can also resort to flowing oxygen by using another method, such as moving your patient out of the cage.

Some clinics choose to use the same chamber for humans, while others use special animal chambers. Multiple chambers treat several patients simultaneously, with a nurse inside and an observer outside monitoring the patients and helping to manipulate the devices in an emergency (see picture below). Patients in multiple chambers breathe in 100% oxygen through a mask-like plastic hood.

Hyperbaric chambers are used to treat a variety of conditions by releasing oxygen at a higher than normal air pressure. The patient is placed in a large chamber with 100% oxygen pressure in veterinary hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which is 1.5 to 3 times the normal atmospheric pressure. Devices used for the patient, such as ventilators and intravenous tubes, are placed in the chamber with the patient.

The choice of the structural design of a pressure chamber goes beyond design preferences such as soft or hard sides; the difference between soft and hard sides of the chamber is the oxygen content absorbed by the chamber user into the bloodstream and taken into account due to the increased air pressure. Also known as Mild Chambers, Home Chambers or Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), these chambers are suitable for clinical environments, wellness centres and home use.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is defined by the Undersea Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) as a treatment where the patient inhales 100% oxygen in a treatment chamber above sea level (1 atmosphere) in which the absolute pressure rise is systemic and can be used either as monoplasty for a person or in a multiple chamber. In a pressure chamber, the air pressure is increased much faster than it is in everyday life.

Compressed air oxygen is delivered through a face mask, hood, tent, endotracheal tube or monoplastic chamber in multi-site chambers, which is pressurized with oxygen. The hyperbaric therapy was first documented in 1662 when Henshaw established the first hyperbaric chamber and chambers were used for many diseases without scientific justification or evidence at the time of the report on the positive effects of increased pressure in 1877.

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) can increase radiotherapy effectiveness, improve mortality and reduce tumor growth by inhaling oxygen and increasing pressure in a closed chamber. It also increases the oxygen supply to tissues throughout the body and increases the volume of oxygen dissolved in the blood, which is useful in treating ischemic diseases such as poor wound healing, carbon monoxide poisoning and burns. The softer side of hyperbaric chambers is known as mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy (MHBOT).

Patients with carbon monoxide poisoning spend a lot of time in the emergency room breathing in oxygen. Topical oxygen (topox) is administered in a small chamber, which is placed on the extremities and pressurized with oxygen. If the patient cannot breathe without oxygen, the rest of the body is pressurized.

Another option is to administer oxygen through the pressure of a pressure chamber where the patient lies down and inhales 100% oxygen at a pressure 1.5 to 2 times higher than the normal air pressure. This is oxygen therapy, which reduces the half-life of carbon monoxide by 20 minutes.

In hyperbaric medicine, a medical treatment in which ambient pressure is greater than sea level or air pressure is a necessary component. This is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT), medical use of oxygen with ambient pressure higher than air pressure for the therapeutic recompression or decompression of a disease aimed at reducing the harmful effects of systemic gas bubbles by reducing their size and providing improved conditions for the elimination of bubbles and excess dissolved gases.

I have participated in a number of discussions on the veterinary web forums on hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) and evidence-based medicine. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves placing the patient in an airtight chamber that raises the air pressure of oxygen to a level where oxygen is dissolved in blood and delivered to the tissue at a higher level than is possible under normal conditions. The equipment required for hyperbaric oxygen treatment consists of a rigid or flexible pressure chamber and a possibility to supply up to 100% oxygen.

There is a large body of animal model research indicating the potential benefits of HBOT for a wide range of diseases, and advocates cite this as justification for incorporating HBOT chambers into veterinary practices to treat patients. Many aspects of the HBO therapy, including standard protocols, are addressed so that it can serve as an effective treatment option for MTBI.

A meta-analysis of random controlled trials yielded mixed results in the neurologic outcomes of carbon monoxide poisoned patients who were undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. A 2016 Cochrane Review raised questions about the ethical basis for future clinical trials of the therapy given the increased risk of eardrum damage in children with autism spectrum disorders. In the face of such strong case studies showing a reduction in mortality and morbidity in necrotizing fasciitis and a subset of quadruple gangrene, it is difficult to imagine a controlled, double-blind study of this therapy.

In a controlled study of osteoradionecrosis six months later, the incidence of patients receiving preoperative hyperbaric oxygen treatment was 5% in compared to 30% in patients receiving only preoperative antibiotics. Several studies have shown improved healing and a lower frequency of amputations after 4-30 sessions.

At least one patient died after receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy without progression or any evidence of an ongoing infection and another suffered from an acute infection that is not thought to be linked to any underlying disease process.