Hyperbaric Therapy and Autism Ranking:

Aims and Claims

Aims

Some people think that some autistic individuals suffer from a range of physiological problems.

They think that these physiological problems may cause many of the other problems found in autistic people, such as poor eye contact, poor socialisation and lack of attention.

They also think that hyperbaric therapy can be used to reduce or overcome the underlying physiological problems and that this can lead to a reduction in the behavioural problems.

Claims

There have been a number of studies which claim that hyperbaric therapy can help reduce physiological problems in some autistic individuals.  For example,

• Rossignol et al (2012) reported "HBOT at the pressures commonly used in children with ASD (up to 1.5 atm/100% oxygen) has been reported to improve cerebral perfusion, decrease markers of inflammation and not worsen oxidative stress markers."

There have been a number of studies which claim that hyperbaric therapy can lead to improvements in behaviour. For example,

• Bent (2012) reported "Ten children completed 80 sessions of HBOT and all improved by 2 points on the clinician-rated CGI-I scale (much improved) as well as several parent-completed measures of behavior."
• Chungpaibulpatana J. et al (2008) reported "Improvement was shown in five domains with a significant level. Seventy-five percent of children shown improvement while 25% did not seem to respond to the treatment."

Updated

17 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Sep 2016

Next Review

01 Dec 2022