Saturday 21 February 2015

Choosing Hyperbaric Chamber Training Courses

By Janine Hughes


Recompression chambers were associated with diving operations until fairly recently. It was only in the early 1960s that research showed the benefits to certain patients of breathing in pure oxygen at pressures greater than normal atmospheric pressure. It was found that this treatment helped new blood vessels to grow and body tissue and organs received more oxygen, thus promoting the healing process. Today a number of hyperbaric chamber training courses exist for health care professionals who want to be involved with this type of treatment.

These chambers are now found at many medical centers. Some of them are suitable for treating a single patient whereas others can accommodate many patients at the same time. Oxygen is delivered individually to each person in the unit. Members of the team administering the treatment can move in and out of the chamber due to independent compartments that compress and decompress.

Many different problems have been found to improve with this type of treatment. Serious infections, bubbles of air in blood vessels, wounds that will not heal, carbon monoxide poisoning and thermal burns are just some of the problems that can be treated. Treatment protocols establish the optimum amount of time and dosage required for a specific problem.

A variety of courses are available, some associated with a particular hospital and others with organizations connected with promoting this type of therapy. It is vitally important to choose a course that is suitably accredited and formulated by those with the right credentials and experience. Cost, length and course content will obviously also play a part in making a decision as to which course to do.

Many health care professionals choose to update their skills with online courses today. The online courses offered are often excellent quality and the most up-to-date information and tools are available. Online forums and discussion groups put students in touch with one another. Plenty of help is usually available from instructors too.

A basic course should cover all the physical aspects of this field of medicine, patient care, oxygen toxicity, how chambers work, contraindications, side effects and more. Significant focus should be given to the clinical aspects of therapy. A course should always offer a good balance between theory and practice and as many learning aids as possible such slides and videos should be utilized.

The type of content covered and the length of a course usually depends on the students it is designed for. Those with much prior experience in medicine will be able to do a basic course easily and progress on to more complex aspects. Physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and others will all be learning at different levels and towards different goals. Certificates are issued on completion of most of the courses.

Patients need to feel confident that they are in the hands of a trained and certified team. Trained physicians are able to prescribe oxygen dosage and a course of therapy according to the diagnosis. Such treatment provides a valuable and unique therapy for certain medical conditions and is often used in conjunction with other surgical or medical treatments, particularly when they have been unsuccessful.




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