Controversial treatment for closed head injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder debated
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Veteran advocacy groups are backing a new bill in Lansing designed to help injured service members suffering from traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. A proposed grant program would make it easier for veterans to connect with Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment.
The treatment is already being used to treat some conditions like crushing injuries and wounds that are not healing properly. Yet some veterans say it can also be used to treat injuries that linger far after combat. Their calls are being joined by demands for more research.
Kevin Hensley is a US Air Force veteran and the national legislative representative for the Veterans of Foreign Wars Michigan. He says veterans need more treatment options. A helmet represents the lives of service members lost during the war on terror. (WLNS) “We can’t wait anymore. I’m sick of going to funerals,” Hensley says.
He wants Michigan to offer a pilot grant program – like some other states–to back the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for veterans suffering from PTSD and TBIs.
He credits the therapy for helping him through complications related to being exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I journaled my entire experience and by the second dive, I could take my first deep breath in 15 years,” says Hensley.
In hyperbaric oxygen treatment, a patient is put in a pressurized environment and given 100% oxygen for some time.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has used the treatment in a limited capacity.In 2021, a department brief said evidence supporting benefits was limited.“Available evidence suggests HBOT can reduce mortality and coma severity more than standard care but is it unclear whether HBOT improves longer-term functionality,” the document said in part for patients in the hospital with acute moderate to severe TBIs.It also noted that combined evidence did not show a short-term improvement in people with chronic mild TBIs.But advocates on both sides of the aisle are calling for more research. In 2023, a resolution from State Rep. Julie Roger (D-Kalamazoo) passed the house , calling on the U.S. […]
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