What exactly is a hyperbaric chamber and what does it look like?

Answer 1

It is a pressurized chamber (providing pressures greater than the atmospheric) that allows for the delivery of oxygen in higher concentrations for therapeutic benefit. Useful in the treatment of severe burns, peripheral vascular disease, carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression illness.

Here are some websites with images of hyperbaric chambers so that you can see how it looks like:

http://www.bchealth.com/services/woundcare/hbotherapy.shtml
http://www.parrishmed.com/programs_services/wound_hyperbaric.cfm

http://www.hyperchamber.com/about_the_unit/index.htm

http://www.healthsciences.okstate.edu/research/cahm/hyperbarics_research.html

Answer 2

It is a large tank, so a person can get into it, and experience increased atmospheric pressure. Divers who come up too fast get air bubbles in their body, so putting them back under pressure squeezes the air back, and lowering pressure slowly allows the air to pass out painlessly. When warburg won the nobel prize for proving that cancer was caused by a lack of oxygen, there was some hope that Hyperbaric treatments would work to cure cancer. Unfortunately, it didn't work well at all.

Answer 3

doesn't it help to circulate the oxygen throughout your blood. It is used for people who have had carbon monoxide poisoning and things of that nature. It's pressurized oxygen for your blood to help get rid of the toxins and things like that. I believ you can sit in teh chamber and its a huge metal thing.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Answer 4

It's like a decompression chamber for people suffering from the bends ....
http://www.hyperbaric.org.uk/