"Effective Treatment for Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Exists..."
This same ability to salvage would-be amputated extremities also applies to IED injured arms and legs. HBOT is approved by the FDA for crush/blast injury, burns, compartment syndrome, and acute interruption of blood supply in extremities. When applied in a timely fashion wounded Veterans’ arms and legs can be salvaged. Unfortunately, that is not happening. Instead, the VA continues to amputate and proceed to prosthetic placement. Last year the VA Appropriations Committee put $50 million into prosthetics research. As laudable as that is, it does not reduce the amputation rate. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the cost of amputating a Veteran’s diabetic wounded foot is $38,400.
An estimated 3,000 amputations cost $115.2 million PER YEAR,
exclusive of rehabilitation and prosthetic costs which can easily double this figure. An operational 12 person hyperbaric center with chamber costs $1.3 million. If 75% of the annual VA hospital amputations were prevented with HBOT in one year the savings would pay for the purchase of 66 multi-person hyperbaric centers. Two years worth of savings would equip nearly July 21, 2010
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Testimony: Paul G. Harch, M.D., IHMA