Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when physical trauma injures the brain. The most common causes of TBI include violence, transportation accidents, construction, and sports. This year in Ontario there will be 55,000 brain injuries raging from slight concussion to massive head trauma. TBI is also a major cause of death and disability worldwide, especially in young people.

TBI causes micro hemorrhages with associated swelling of brain tissue. As the skull is a fixed, hard, bony structure, which cannot expand with increased edema of the brain, the delicate structures within the brain become more compressed, thus inhibiting blood flow, and causing more ischemic damage. The increased barometric pressure during hyperbaric medicine procedures has been shown to reverse this compression.

Head injuries, such as stroke, deprive certain areas of the brain of oxygen. These are areas that can potentially benefit from hyperbaric oxygen. The size and location of the brain trauma as well as the potential for reversibility of damage within the penumbra (dormant brain tissue surrounding the central core of dead brain tissue) is what dictates the patient's potential for recovery.

Swelling may take upwards of 9 to 12 months to resolve, during which time the delicate structures within the brain remain compressed, limiting normal blood flow to the damaged tissues. HBOT reduces the swelling within the brain and enhances new blood vessel growth (angiogenesis). This process of forming new capillaries, induced by hyperbaric oxygen, extends from the surrounding healthy brain tissue into the area of the ischemic penumbra. With the improvement in brain circulation and reduction of edema, HBOT therapy enables the patient to have a return of cognitive function with reduction in headaches, improved balance and reduced tinnitus.

There is clinical and experimental evidence suggesting that hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) treatment is beneficial in reducing mortality and improving the functional recovery of survivors.