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A Case Report of Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber Treatment (HBOT) and Improvement in Mood Symptoms in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
Mr. TR was injured in a motor vehicle accident in 2010 and suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which resulted in changes in his personality and behavior. He developed irritability, vivid nightmares about harming others, suicidal and homicidal ideations, sleep disturbances and headaches, which required substantial medication management and two psychiatric inpatient hospitalizations. Six years following the injury he began hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatments (HBOT). He was treated with 100% oxygen at greater than 1 ATM for 2 hours/day, five days/week. The patient completed 4 weeks of treatment totaling 20 HBOT sessions. Within just two weeks of starting HBOT, the patient had improvement in mood and sleep, which continued to show improvement even while his psychotropic medications were decreased. This improvement has been maintained for nearly a year with concomitant reduction in medication load and improvement in metabolic sequelae. We conclude that based on the patient's increased symptom control, as well as a decline in his psychotropic medications, HBOT may be an effective option to treat mood symptom sequelae of TBI.
