Oxygen-therapy chamber draws believers

A doctor in Cleveland used high-pressure chambers that resembled Pullman train cars to treat a host of diseases with oxygen therapy in the early 1900s, claiming miraculous results.

Al Wilson's version of the apparatus almost 90 years later operates out of a trailer parked outside a hotel in Somerset County.

Twirling control knobs for pressurization of a steel tank similar to a large, tubular diving bell, Wilson has for the past five weeks treated patients, mostly children with brain disorders, to a breath of fresh oxygen that improves the symptoms of their conditions -- at least in the eyes of their parents.

Marsha Minard said she knew the hyperbaric oxygen therapy was working as soon as her 2 1/2-year-old son, Matthew, who is autistic, began repeating her words for the first time.

"I kiss and hug him all the time, and I said 'Kiss,' and then he said to me, 'Kiss,' after 12 treatments," said the mother from Montgomery. "I was so excited. He said it a bunch of times. He couldn't get out the 's,' but I could tell what he was saying."

It was another local mother's interest in the therapy -- a controversial one not often covered by insurance companies -- that brought Wilson and his mobile hyperbaric chamber to the parking lot of the Marriott in Bridgewater in late June.

There are less than half a dozen of the devices around the country, according to Wilson's employer, Tom Fox, a physiologist working from his own clinic in Montreal.

Fox runs the chamber under the name American Hyperbarics, which has business offices in Orlando, Fla. He said his firm reached out to Hillary Downing, a mother with an autistic child living in Readington, when she sought affordable hyperbaric oxygen treatments on the Internet.

A doctor in Cleveland used high-pressure chambers that resembled Pullman train cars to treat a host of diseases with oxygen therapy in the early 1900s, claiming miraculous results.

Al Wilson's version of the apparatus almost 90 years later operates out of a trailer parked outside a hotel in Somerset County.

Marsha Minard said she knew the hyperbaric oxygen therapy was working as soon as her 2 1/2-year-old son, Matthew, who is autistic, began repeating her words for the first time.

"I kiss and hug him all the time, and I said `Kiss,' and then he said to me, `Kiss,' after 12 treatments," said the mother from Montgomery. "I was so excited. He said it a bunch of times. He couldn't get out the `s,' but I could tell what he was saying."

It was another local mother's interest in the therapy - a controversial one not often covered by insurance companies - that brought Wilson and his mobile hyperbaric chamber to the parking lot of the Marriott in Bridgewater in late June.

There are less than half a dozen of the devices around the country, according to Wilson's employer, Tom Fox, a physiologist working from his own clinic in Montreal.

Fox's response was to bring the service - offering treatments at $100 a piece, usually for 40 one-hour sessions - directly to Downing by having the trailer brought to New Jersey.

"You could be wary about something like that, but he was able to give me a lot of references, because he travels to a lot of states," said Downing, who has an autistic 5-year-old daughter.

"I talked to a lot of parents," Downing added. "It didn't make me nervous at all. There was a lot of good evidence out there that he knew what he was doing."

Greater scientific research, however, is needed to prove the treatment works on autism, cerebral palsy and other neurological conditions, according to the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.

So far, only 14 ailments and conditions treated by the oxygen therapy are eligible for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, said Don Chandler, executive director of the nonprofit organization representing professionals in the field.

The eligible conditions include thermal burns, skin grafts, anemia, open wounds, carbon monoxide poisoning and the ailment that helped pioneer the chamber, decompression sickness.

Doctors in the mid-1800s first treated caisson workers and divers who suffered from the condition known as "the bends," a rapid decrease in pressure outside the body that causes elevated nitrogen levels in the blood.

Chambers for recompression and the delivery of pure oxygen to alleviate symptoms were soon believed helpful in treating other maladies, although unproven. The practice was perfected for treating workers who went underground, as well as deep-sea divers, while some doctors persisted in expanding the field into other areas.

Most remembered is anesthesiologist Orval Cunningham, who began treating patients out of pressurized chambers that resembled Pullman train cars in 1918. The therapy was used for pneumonia, heart conditions and even infections.

Cunninghan went as far as building a five-story hyperbaric hospital in Cleveland that had some of the posh amenities of a hotel. But the venture proved a disaster in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, and closed within a few years of Cunningham's death.

"We call it "Cunningham's Folly," said Chandler.

"Quackery," according to Cunningham, left the United States with only 30 chambers by 1970. Efforts to legitimize the therapy have brought the number up to about 500 today, including 300 that are hospital-based, he said. One of the chambers is in operation at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville.

All Al Wilson needed to bring his trailer to Bridgewater was an electrical and fire permit from the township. The former diver said he almost immediately fielded questions from people asking about celebrities who have used the therapy to prolong life.

"You probably heard the whole Michael Jackson thing about him sleeping in one of these," said Wilson, explaining how the pop singer used the treatments for burns he suffered while filming a commercial.

"They made up stories he was sleeping in one. But in actuality he was getting treated for his burns," said Wilson.

Parents were allowed to sit with their children during treatments. A clear, plastic oxygen hood was draped over each patient's head while they sat inside the chamber, which simulated an undersea depth of as much as 60 feet. "Beyond 60 to 65 feet, oxygen becomes toxic," Wilson said.

Fox, the chamber's owner, said he didn't promote the therapy as a cure for many maladies. Instead, he relied on the successes and research work of doctors using the therapy around the world to offer patients a way of improving their conditions.

"I personally treated my father after open heart surgery and saw an incredible change in him," Fox said. "So, I believe in it."

Richard Yeats, a 69-year-old retiree from Long Hill Township who suffered three strokes, has been Wilson's only adult patient since the trailer rolled into Bridgewater. Yeats said he felt strength returning to the weakened left side of his body and that his speech had also improved.

His wife, Audrey, who kept her husband company in the chamber during his treatments, said she was planning to go in next to treat Lyme disease, which she believes can be alleviated by the therapy.

"With Lyme, you can get strokes and heart attacks," said the 63-year-old grandmother of four. "And I have a lot of reasons to live."

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