injuries poisoning
Recompression Therapy
Recompression protocols
Pressure and duration of treatment are usually decided by a hyperbaric medicine specialist at the recompression facility. Treatments are given once or twice a day for 45 to 300 minutes until symptoms abate; 5- to 10-minute air breaks are added to reduce risk of oxygen toxicity. For treatment of decompression illness, chamber pressure is usually initially maintained between 2.5 and 3.0 ATA. Although recompression therapy is usually done with 100% oxygen or compressed air, special gas mixtures (eg, helium/oxygen or nitrogen/oxygen in nonatmospheric proportions) may be indicated if the diver used an unusual gas mixture or if depth or duration of the dive was extraordinary. Specific protocol tables for treatment are included in theU.S. Navy Diving Manual. Patients with residual neurologic deficits should be given repetitive, intermittent hyperbaric treatments and may require several days to reach maximum improvement. 