Oxygen therapy improves health of local youngster

Final results of a 15-day stint of hyberbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for six-year-old Brett Jewell of Fort Frances won’t be fully known for a couple of weeks but indications are the innovative treatment has diminished some of the side effects of his cerebral palsy.
The youngster and his mother, Kathy, returned home last Friday from the Hyperbaric Oxygen Corp. in Vancouver, where he received doses of 100 percent oxygen while inside a pressurized chamber.
The increased pressure enabled the tissues in his body to be flooded with oxygen, thus allowing oxygen-starved cells to begin normal functioning and healing.
Jewell said although the HBOT program was taxing, it markedly improved her son’s co-ordination and fine motor skills–although no changes were seen until 26 of the 30 treatments were completed.
“The posturing he had seems to have stopped,” she noted Monday. “There’s a couple of other little things we’ve noticed that [have improved] and hand/eye co-ordination.”
“He fell yesterday and put his hands down–he’s never done that before,” she added.
Jewell said the improvements from the oxygen therapy will continue to work on her son for a couple of weeks but she admitted he also could experience up to a 10 percent regression.
That prospect, and the fact her son didn’t respond to the oxygen treatments until near its completion, has prompted Jewell and her husband, Rick, to consider another round of HBOT sometime in the near future.
“We don’t have to go back but we’re discussing it,” she said. “I’d like to see [Brett] go back for 20 more treatments.”