Therapeutic Neurology:  A New Concept,

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy:  The Foundation Biological Treatment

Dr. Paul G. Harch M.D.
February 2020

Historically, the field of neurology has suffered from lack of effective treatments (ref-AN-Part2).  Prior to the turn of the 21^st Century neurology was primarily a diagnostic specialty with the practice of neurology famously characterized by stroke neurologist J.P.Mohr as “Diagnose and Adios.”  More importantly, however, was the mentality still extant today that nothing could be done to alter the course of neurological disease, especially chronic neurological disease, in that neurons were either dead or alive.  This mentality was reinforced by a literature search by Dr. Harch in 1993 in preparation for an animal experiment on HBOT in chronic traumatic brain injury.  An extensive literature search failed to find a single scientific publication on the subject of treatment of chronic TBI.  Dominated by the mentality above it appeared that no one had tried.  The improvement in chronic TBI that was subsequently proven with the use of HBOT in 2007 remains as the first improvement of chronic brain injury in animals in the history of science.

Based on Dr. Richard Neubauer’s repudiation of the dead or alive neuron mentality with his “Idling Neuron” Letter to the Editor of The Lancet in 1990, Dr. Harch’s early and seminal application of HBOT to divers with “untreatable” chronic brain decompression illness, and a boxer with CTE spawned the application of HBOT to over 80 neurological diagnoses, including genetic disorders.  Inadvertently, this established the concept that chronic neurological disease was treatable and the course of disease could be altered.  Coupled with the evidence that HBOT had a powerful impact in acute neurological disease, it was apparent that Diagnostic Neurology was now paired with Therapeutic Neurology.  More importantly, it underscored that hyperbaric oxygen therapy was a foundation biological tool for Therapeutic Neurology, a generic treatment for neurological disease and one with which other brain therapies could be coupled.  In the next 20 years the world’s population is going to witness the combination of HBOT with multiple other therapies that together will revolutionize the treatment of neurological disorders.  The Oxygen Revolution is now the Oxygen Solution.