Dr. Kerry Thibodeaux - Medical Director of the Wound Treatment Center (00:03) The Wound Treatment Center and the Opelousas General Health System have been here for 30 years and are on call 24/7 to treat a variety of wound complications for both inpatient and outpatient.

Wound care benefits patients by bringing together a multidisciplinary team that specializes in helping their wounds respond to treatment, ultimately heal and return to pre-wound function. The most common types of wounds seen in wound treatment centers are associated with complications of diabetes, such as diabetic foot ulcers and bone infections in people with diabetes, and people with venous disease, who have venous leg ulcers, which are due to venous hypertension untreated. Another common patient population is those who have been traumatized with infection, and those who have surgical complications from wounds caused by infection or other surgical failures.

Currently, there are 14 approved indications for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. When the patient is transferred here for hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Staff review their records, talk to them, examine them, talk to their doctors, and then pre-certify their treatment to make sure this is the covered indication. In the clinic, the most common indications for hyperbaric oxygen therapy are soft tissue infections, commonly referred to as flesh-eating bacteria, and severe loss of blood flow in patients with acute arterial insufficiency, mainly in the extremities, or complications after endovascular reconstruction. Complications of surgery. Of course, a damaged flap, the patient needs surgery, the flap is used to close the wound, but for various reasons, it starts to fail, and there are traumatic injuries that require additional oxygenation to help heal.

Another group of more common patients seen here, or those with chronic bone infections not responding to conventional treatment, and those with radiation complications, including radiation cystitis, blood in their urine, radiation-induced Proctitis Because of radiation, you have blood in your stool. Most commonly, in breast cancer patients receiving radiation therapy, they develop what is known as radiation, mastitis. All of these diagnoses were shown to be improved by hyperbaric oxygen therapy.