Media: Shelia McCauley talks Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers

CHI St. Vincent Wound Care Center, in Little Rock, Ark., recently added a third hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) chamber to treat patients who have non-healing wounds. The third chamber gives the ability to schedule more patients at a time that is convenient for them. Many have very active lives. Fitting two hours into their schedule, for HBO therapy, around work and other obligations is difficult. Before work, noon and after work are high-demand times that we can now more easily accommodate.

Patients receiving HBO therapy lie in the chamber breathing 100 percent oxygen at pressures greater than normal atmospheric (sea level) pressure. Raising the tissue oxygen levels 10 – 20 times normal, in combination with other medical and surgical procedures, has been very successful in enhancing the healing process of problem wounds. Patients can watch television, on a monitor they control, or read while having HBO therapy.

The CHI St. Vincent Wound Care Center treats non-healing wounds resulting from diabetes, poor blood circulation, radiation damage, collagen disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, infections – including necrotizing and gangrene infections, bacterial bone infections, brown recluse spider bites and compromised skin grafts and flaps. Pressure ulcers are also treated at the center.