newjerseynewsroom.com

It's Burn Awareness Week and The Wound Center at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, an affiliate of the Saint Barnabas Health Care System, is on a mission. It wants to inform the New Jersey community that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is an effective treatment option for mild burns such as first or second degree burns.

HBOT is a proven medical treatment that uses high-oxygen-pressure to treat mild burns and other conditions including diabetic ulcers, necrosis of soft tissue and bone due to radiation treatments, and other non-healing wounds.

"When treating first and second degree burns, hyperbaric therapy allows oxygen to flood the affected area and helps improve and quicken healing," said Joseph LoBiondo, DPM, Medical Director of The Wound Center at Clara Maass. "Treatments typically last 60 to 90 minutes and continue daily for up to 30 days, depending on the severity of the burn."

First-degree burns (i.e. sunburn) are red and very sensitive to touch, and the skin will appear blanched when light pressure is applied. These burns affect the outer-layer of skin causing pain, redness and swelling. Second-degree burns affect both the outer-layer and the under lying layer of skin causing redness, pain, swelling and blisters.

HBOT administers pure oxygen in a chamber at an air pressure two to three times higher than that of the external atmosphere. In this high-pressure, high-oxygen environment, the body's white blood cells significantly increase the body's ability to heal. As the patient breathes normally, the high pressure atmosphere forces pure oxygen into the bloodstream, increasing blood flow and creating new blood vessels. This increased oxygen delivery to all tissues improves the ability of the white blood cells to kill bacteria and helps boost the body's own natural healing process. With four hyperbaric chambers, The Wound Center offers hyperbaric therapy that is delivered and monitored by trained wound healing center specialists.

The Wound Center is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For more information call 973-844-4070

— ANDY LAGOMARSINO, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM