Declining cognitive abilities is one of the key concerns for those individuals 60 years and older. Though not limited to this age group, this concern is on the rise and efforts are being made to better understand and treat age-related cognitive impairment. One treatment currently showing great promise is hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
In this study, 63 healthy adults were evaluated with a 3 month course of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. During this 3 month time period, each subject was given 60 hyperbaric sessions (90 minutes with 5 min air every 20 minutes) at 2.0 ATA.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy “was shown to induce cognitive enhancements in healthy aging adults via mechanisms involving regional changes in CBF. The main improvements include attention, information processing speed and executive functions, which normally decline with aging”. <view study>