Can hyperbaric oxygen therapy help autistic kids?: Scientific American BlogThey have no idea why it might work. I'd bet a $50 donation to CARE.ORG that two years from now this goes nowhere. It's just too weird.
... New research in today's BMC Pediatrics may give the therapy more credibility as a treatment for autism. The randomized, double-blind controlled study of 62 children found that those who received 40 hours of treatment over a month were less irritable, more responsive when people spoke to them, made more eye contact and were more sociable than kids who didn’t receive it. They were also less sensitive to noise (some autistic children experience a kind of sensory overload from loud sounds and background noise). The most improvement was observed in kids older than five (the study included children ages two to seven) who had milder autism...
Any takers?
Update 3/14/09: Hoisted from comments:
... look at the some of the authors of the study... Rossignol, who works with Jeff Bradstreet. 'Nuff said. And James Neubrander, the self-proclaimed inventor of MB12 injections to treat autism and who has links to various sites promoting chelation and Valtrex on his web site. Yeah, this one is full of credibility.Now here's the bit that gives me the despairs.
In addition to being expensive to insurers, this treatment will expose children to the risks of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (there's no such thing as a risk-free treatment) and to the trauma of close confinement. It sucks time, money and energy from their families. We'll have to now spend millions continuing investigations, with the most likely outcome being that this is worse than a waste.
If I turn out to be wrong, I'll donate $200 to CARE.ORG.
1 comment:
Uh, look at the some of the authors of the study... Rossignol, who works with Jeff Bradstreet. 'Nuff said. And James Neubrander, the self-proclaimed inventor of MB12 injections to treat autism and who has links to various sites promoting chelation and Valtrex on his web site. Yeah, this one is full of credibility. I think we're seeing a lot of "studies" that claim double-blind, placebo-controlled status because they've been criticized so much in the past for not doing studies correctly. I think we'll pass on this one.
Post a Comment