They look like submarines or spaceships. But have you ever wondered what it's like INSIDE a hyperbaric chamber for oxygen therapy? The Midwest Hyperbaric Institute in Bolingbrook offers a peek inside a device used to help treat wounds, neurological disorders, cerebral palsy and, increasingly, autism.
by Elizabeth Diffin
It could be any after-school program or day-care center, with a set of twins playing tug-of-war with a pillow and a serious-looking boy watching a television program. But what makes this room different from the typical cookies-and-juice session is the fact that these children are encased in large acrylic tubes where they’re breathing pressurized, oxygenated air.
These children have been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, and they’re receiving a controversial treatment – hyperbaric oxygen therapy – in the hope that it will improve their autistic symptoms and behaviors.
A study published in March found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in which air is pressurized to simulate deep-sea levels, may be a viable treatment for autism. The research showed improvements in autistic children who had the therapy, particularly in their overall "autistic functioning," such as receptive language, social interaction and eye contact.
Dr. Dan Rossignol, a family practitioner in Melbourne, Fla., who authored the study, has two autistic children of his own. In 2006, after "buzz" began to build about hyperbaric oxygen therapy in kids with autism, he and his wife decided to try it for their younger son, who had only been speaking single words. After about 20 hyperbaric treatments, the boy began to put together three to four word sentences, piquing his father’s interest in the topic.
However, when Rossignol, who has a hyperbaric chamber in his clinic, began to look into research on hyperbaric oxygen therapy for autism, he said he was surprised to see there weren’t any double-blind controll studies on the topic. So he decided to do his own and published the results in BMC Pediatrics, an open-access online journal.
Doctors at Midwest Hyperbaric Institute in the southwest suburb of Bolingbrook, have been using hyperbaric oxygen therapy with autistic children for the past five years. In addition to the traditional uses of hyperbaric oxygen therapy – such as wound healing and decompression sickness – the facility has pioneered treatment for neurological conditions like cerebral palsy, stroke, multiple sclerosis and autism.
The facility traditionally has five or six children undergoing treatments during the same time period. The children have 40 sessions, called "dives," at 1.3 to 1.5 atmospheres, take a break for four to six weeks, and then return for 40 more dives. By the end of the 80 one-hour sessions, parents, doctors – and even independent therapists – say they notice some sort of improvement in the autistic kids.
In fact, Dr. August Martinucci, the medical director of Midwest Hyperbaric Institute, said that in the years he’s been treating autistic children with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, it’s always proven effective.
"I’ve never seen one [child] with no improvement whatsoever," Martinucci said. "It might have been minor, but there have been changes."
He does caution, however, that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is not the autism cure-all and that it works best in conjunction with the other more traditional therapies.
According to Martinucci, there’s not a single "silver bullet" that will be a cure. "It’s a spectrum disease," he said. "You have to have a spectrum of treatments."
Parents admit that they’re willing to try almost anything to help their autistic child improve.
Brian McNally, whose 6-year-old son, Sean, was diagnosed with autism about four years ago, said the boy is on a variety of medications and supplements, goes to physical and occupational therapy, and adheres to a strict diet.
"We’re throwing the kitchen sink in to see what sticks," McNally said.
But he said that in the 28 sessions Sean has undergone, he’s already exhibited signs of improvement. Sean makes eye contact more often and obeys directions. He just learned to ride a bike. And next school year, he will be part of a partially-integrated first grade class, participating in classes such as art, music and lunch with the so-called "normal" children.
"They’re tiny gains," McNally said. "But all the tiny gains add up."
Skeptics say that these supposed gains may simply be a case of the placebo effect, with parents seeing an improvement only because they’re looking for one. In traditional drug studies, the placebo effect is observed when the participants taking a "sugar pill" report medical improvement.
In Rossignol’s study, a striking 73 percent of parents with children in the control group rated their child as improved, without knowing they hadn’t been given true hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
"The placebo effect is very powerful," said Dr. Alan Rosenblatt, a Chicago neurodevelopmental pediatric specialist. "I think when there is no cure, anything is a cure."
Rosenblatt said his skepticism is rooted in his own understanding of neurophysiology, as well as the success he has seen as a result of behavioral interventions in very young children. He said the research community might be better served by focusing on the more proven therapies, and their theoretical foundations, when it comes to treating autism.
"You have to have a healthy dose of skepticism even for a proven therapy," Rosenblatt, who is on faculty at Feinberg School of Medicine, said. "More understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the disease will lead to the most meaningful interventions and treatments."
In fact, no one knows for sure why hyperbaric oxygen therapy might cause the improvement so many parents and therapists have noticed. But Martinucci speculated that the increased blood flow from the hyperbaric oxygen therapy acts as an anti-inflammatory agent that soothes the swelling many autistic children suffer from in their brain and gastrointestinal tract.
Patients being treated for a variety of conditions also mention the increased "clarity of thought" brought on by the hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Jennifer, who asked that her last name not be used, is the mother of 3-year-old autistic twins being treated at Midwest Hyperbaric Institute.
"Both of my kids seemed less foggy," she said. "They were looking at me and getting it. They seemed more ‘plugged in.’"
And the energetic boys running down the hallway to "blast off" in the spaceship-shaped hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber certainly seem a far cry from the withdrawn children their mother described.
"They love it here," she said, noting their roughhousing in the hyperbaric chamber.
Indeed, many autistic patients seem to do particularly well when it comes to hyperbaric oxygen therapy, Martinucci said. Children who benefit from deep pressure find the treatment soothing and some of them have mentioned that their heads "feel good" after the treatment.
"We have more problems with the parents than with the kids," Martinucci said. "The kids are happy to go in there."
Of course, there are bigger problems than overprotective parents when it comes to the application of hyperbaric oxygen therapy to autism. Rosenblatt doesn’t think that Rossignol’s study is conclusive enough for him to recommend to patients.
"I can’t say it’s a proven therapy for autism," Rosenblatt said. "But I do think we ought to take this study seriously and challenge people to replicate it."
Rosenblatt said that he’s happy the researchers attempted to do a double-blind study, something that is notoriously difficult with a spectrum disorder. But he said that if the research is able to be replicated – preferably by a more authoritative academic center – it’s more likely to be embraced by the mainstream medical community. But until that point, he said he would recommend parents to focus on the proven interventions, such as behavioral and speech therapies.
"My advice would be to put neurodevelopmental therapies at the center of your total therapeutic package," Rosenblatt said.
And if patients are insistent on trying other treatments, Rosenblatt said to explore them one at a time to determine their true impact.
"Many parents won’t feel comfortable until they’ve tried every possible intervention to help their child," Rosenblatt said. "My heart goes out to these parents. I don’t envy them their choices and decisions."
Many of those same parents are hopeful that increased study of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in autistic kids will have a different sort of benefit: the financial kind. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments are expensive – a set of sessions can cost several thousand dollars – and many insurance companies aren’t willing to cover them because they’re considered "off-label."
Tina O’Sullivan, whose 17-month-old son, Sean, is being treated for a brain injury – not autism – at Midwest Hyperbaric Institute, said the insurance payments are a constant battle.
"Insurance covers certain things," she said. "But these treatments are essentially his first year of college."
Rossignol said he hopes that if his study is able to be reproduced, it might open the door to additional approved treatment options for autism. And he believes that in the long-run, those treatments will have a larger benefit.
"If we can come up with treatments that lead to improvements, the savings to society could be huge," Rossignol said. "If these studies continue to come out, it might become a standard treatment."
But in the meantime, he hopes that for the people who can afford to pay for hyperbaric oxygen therapy, his study provides some reassurance.
"If parents want to do this and have the money, it certainly seems to be safe," Rossignol said. "Parents can know it’s not going to be harmful."
In fact, he said that the main finding of the study was that the hyperbaric oxygen therapy was well-tolerated by most children. And he was quick to point out that although they did observe some gains, there were some kids who didn’t necessarily improve, which was expected.
"Within a study, there’s always going to be some who improve and some who don’t," he said. "We take a reasonable approach: This is a promising treatment."
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Elizabeth Diffin/Medill
Sean McNally, a 6-year-old with autism, is more than a quarter of the way through his hyperbaric oxygen therapy. His parents and teachers have noticed positive results.
Research looks at hyperbaric treatment and autism
The hyperbaric oxygen treatment study for autism, published in the March issue of BMC Pediatrics, was a double-blind, controlled trial.
Dr. Dan Rossignol and his colleagues studied 62 children between the ages of two and seven who received 40 treatments over the course of four weeks. The treatment group had hyperbaric oxygen therapy with air pressurized to a standard 1.3 atmospheres (the rough equivalent of deep-sea diving to 10 feet), while the control group breathed only slightly pressurized air to mimic the other treatment.
The children, their parents and the evaluating physicians did not know which group the children were in. The hyperbaric technicians, who had no input into the treatment, were the only ones aware of each child’s status and were instructed to keep it secret.
At the beginning and end of the study, the parents and physicians filled out standardized scales rating the child’s functioning in several different areas. The evaluations were then compared to determine whether the child had improved as a result of the therapy. Children in the treatment group scored significantly better on the Clinical Global Impression scale, with the greatest improvements found in overall functioning, receptive language, social interaction and eye contact.
Analysis done after the study’s completion revealed that higher-functioning autistic children, who initially scored in the top 50 percent of the scales, showed the fastest improvement. Children over the age of five also showed greater advances than their younger counterparts.
Rossignol was quick to point out that those results need to be studied further to determine if they are a "true finding."
"We don’t know for sure why [the therapy] worked," he said. "But the nice thing about this study is that a condition that’s felt by most people to be untreatable is showing potential improvement. We’re not saying this is an answer or a cure. But it might be good in some children. It’s promising."
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