What Researchers Did
Researchers tested whether adding hyperbaric oxygen therapy to rehabilitation training, at different intensities, helped patients recover better after moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury.
What They Found
This multicenter, randomized, stratified case-controlled trial of 158 patients with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury found that scores on four function tests (FIM, FMA, MBI, and MMSE) improved significantly across all four treatment groups after 1, 2, and 3 months of training (p less than 0.01). Improvement was especially remarkable in the group that received twice-daily intensified rehabilitation training combined with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (p less than 0.01). The abstract does not report how the other three groups compared with each other.
Canadian Relevance
No direct Canadian connection identified.
Study Limitations
The trial did not report exact p-values beyond "less than 0.01," and did not specify how the four groups differed from one another in size or baseline severity, limiting how precisely the results can be interpreted.