Sensation brain damage after 15 minutes under water - toddler recovers completely thanks to new treatment

Oxygen therapy leads to the reversal of brain damage in children
Children like to play in the water in summer. The nightmare for all parents is that their child falls underwater unattended while playing and drowns. Serious health problems threaten quickly if children are not immediately rescued from the water. The lack of oxygen often causes brain damage. However, researchers have now been able to reverse the supposedly persistent damage in a toddler after such an accident.

Scientists at LSU Health New Orleans have now, for the first time ever, succeeded in reversing the onset of brain damage in an almost drowned infant who was underwater for 15 minutes. The doctors used a series of oxygen treatments. The experts published their report on the treatment in the journal "Medical Gas Research".

Especially for children there is usually nothing better in summer than to cool off while bathing. However, if children have a bathing accident while swimming and stay under water for too long without air, serious brain damage is imminent. Researchers have now been able to reverse the brain damage in a toddler after such an accident. (Image: Brocreative / fotolia.com)

Child about 15 minutes without air under water
An almost deadly swimming accident in the family pool in February 2016 resulted in damage to the brain of the two-year-old toddler. The child had been underwater for about 15 minutes without air in this accident. To reverse the damage, doctors gave the infant oxygen at a higher pressure than the general atmospheric pressure. The increase in the amount of oxygen in the blood and the repair of the damaged tissue was done in a sealed and pressurized so-called hyperbaric chamber, explain the experts.

Oxygen deficiency led to severe brain injury
The surprising tissue regrowth occurred because we were able to get treatment early even before long-term tissue degeneration occurred, explains author Paul Harch of LSU Health New Orleans. The child was promptly resuscitated by the mother immediately after finding her until she was finally taken to hospital. There, the child could be revived two hours later, after it had already suffered a cardiac arrest, the doctors say. The lack of oxygen resulted in the infant to a serious brain injury. The child was then unable to speak, walk or respond to verbal communication.

Oxygen treatments started 55 days after the accident
The child was hospitalized for 48 days before being discharged. The expert Harsch wanted to try to cure the child's brain through a course of oxygen therapies. Oxygen treatments started 55 days after the accident. Therapy was performed twice a day for 45 minutes each. This treatment resulted in the affected toddler regaining movement of their arms and hands, the researchers explain. Three weeks later, the child was transferred to the nearest hospital with a hyperbaric chamber. There began the so-called hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Results of oxygen therapy
After only ten sessions, the child's mother said that her child was healthy and normal again. The child could run around again and even speak better than it could before the accident. The results of all neurological, motor function and cognition tests were significantly improved, the researchers say. An MRI scan 162 days after the incident showed that the child still had a slight remaining brain injury, but the previously experienced depletion of cortical and white matter in the brain was almost completely reversed, the physicians add. Doctors can not say for sure how well oxygen treatment has helped such a dramatic reversal of severe brain damage. The treatment was thought to help reduce the swelling and aid brain cells in survival, the authors explain. (As)