Friday, 13 March, 2009 20:11 Written by admin
A decompression chamber may help children with autism, say researchers.
After 40 hours of hyperbaric treatment autistic children showed significant improvements in social interaction and eye contact compared with controls.
The BMC Pediatrics study could not show if the results were long-lasting but should prompt further investigation of the treatment, the US team said.
One theory is that oxygen can help reduce inflammation and improve flow of oxygen to brain tissue.
Hyperbaric treatment – effectively giving high concentrations of oxygen at increased atmospheric pressure – has been shown to have some benefit in other neurological conditions such as foetal alcohol syndrome and cerebral palsy.
Some studies have looked at the treatment in children with autism but they have not compared with a dummy procedure raising questions around a “placebo effect”.