‘HyperMED NeuroRecovery is committed to expanding the therapeutic window promoting worthwhile functional outcomes - gone are days of simply living and coping with disability!' Dr Mal Hooper _ HyperMED NeuroRecovery Australia

 

Faith In Your Values

 “People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centred - Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of being selfish or having ulterior motives - Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies - Succeed anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable - Be honest anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow - Do it anyway.

The smallest people with the smallest brains will shoot down the biggest people with the biggest ideas - Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs - Fight for some underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight - Build anyway.

Give the world the best you've got and you will probably get kicked in the teeth - Give the world your best anyway.

You see, it’s not the score that somebody else keeps on your life that counts in the end, it's the score you keep on your life that makes the difference.   Have faith in your Values!”  (Author - unknown)

 

• HyperMED Australia : Vision 2010

'Vision - the commodity of Leaders and Power is their currency'

Warren Bennis, in his book on ‘Leadership’ identifies Vision as being one of the essential ingredients that sets great leaders apart from the rest of the field. To be an effective leader one must have Vision. Vision and Power does not mean money, which is a common mistake made by most individuals. Money cannot buy Vision but it can buy Power and it can certainly corrupt Vision.

Great leaders over the centuries including Christ, Gandhi and Mother Theresa are remembered as individuals with great vision and power not because of individual or organizational wealth but because of services and accomplishment to mankind.

Ultimately the fact that makes or breaks a leader is not just having a worthwhile vision and the perception of power but it is often determined by two important and essential components. The more effective these components are implemented, the more powerful the leader and the more inspiring the vision. The first component is the ‘ability to translate vision and intention into reality’ and the second component is ‘how quickly the task is accomplished’.

The field of Hyperbaric Medicine is emerging with some major opposition. Traditional and established fields of medicine are becoming challenged not because of ‘big business’ promotion but because an extremely small but increasing percentage of the public have been afforded the opportunity to gain benefit from this application.

HBOT is not a new procedure; it has a long history previously discussed. However it is emerging with new application given the advances in investigative techniques and medical procedures. The greater the focus of attention, the greater the recognition of application. In this situation the age-old scripture ‘The Life of the flesh is in the Blood’ (Leviticus 17 vs. 11) is being clearly demonstrated.

The vision that has made our services, at HyperMED NeuroRecovery unique has been the ‘dogged determination’ to remain fixed on what began as an ideal, has emerged as ‘the break-through in the treatment and management of spinal and related neuro-vascular disorders’. The essentials of time, consistency of application and the determination to provide a service that the government and related bodies abjectly refuse to fund, has forged another ‘new and successful application’.

The impact of Hyperbaric Medicine is based upon the recognition that spinal related and many other conditions of the body are primarily as a result of a ‘non compliant wounds involving both soft tissue and hard tissue structures aggravated by secondary opportunistic infection with additional imposed molecular dysfunction.’

Recognition of this fact then enables the clinician to focus on measures that deal with this underlying influence and treat appropriately. The application of HBOT does not remove the essentials of traditional and or complimentary approaches in fact; it provides a harmony between different approaches and treatment options.

HBOT facilities the immune system whilst promoting re-vascularization of ischemic and degenerative tissue structures minimizing the risk associated with secondary infection and scar formation for those patients requiring surgical intervention.

• HBOT is non-invasive. It is not a surgical procedure

• HBOT is safe. Unlike many other treatments and surgical procedures, HBOT has few side effects, and almost none of any lasting nature

• HBOT works extremely well with other forms of physical therapies and or requisite medications. It enhances the effectiveness of both traditional and complimentary therapies

Regardless of our personal endeavours, life does not always ‘dish up’ what we would necessarily like as a first preference. Life seems to present an endless sense of boundaries and limitations that attempt to deflect us from our ‘dreams’. To wait for ‘acceptance and approval’ or sit on the sideline thinking that eventually our goals will be accomplished is simply naïve.

'For a long time, it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – Real Life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served and a debt to be paid - then life would begin. At last it dawned on me, these obstacles were in fact MY LIFE'  (Alfred d’ Souza)

Inspirational dissatisfaction drives us as individuals to accomplish what often seems to be the impossible. Challenges cause us to rise and overcome the obstacles or alternatively we give up, sit back and accept the standards that are projected on us and ultimately take what life dictates. Miracles just don’t happen unless they are from God above!

'The world we lived in the past has created the problems of today,
But to solve today’s problems requires the thinking of tomorrow.' (Einstein)

Einstein states that there are answers to the problems that surround us, and a vital part of that answer is to step outside of convention and passionately persist with a thought, an inspiration and a vision.

I believe we all have a God given ability to resolve issues that confront us - globally and domestically. It is often not until we lose something that we ultimately appreciate the value of what we lost. I am convinced that as individuals we have a unique ability to self regulate given the right ingredients and motivation.

 

---

Getting back to the subject title, the key issue in the adoption of any therapy perceived as new is making the profession aware of the facts, and this means marketing. Even the introduction of a new drug is difficult, although physicians are generally drugs orientated. Medical marketing professionals’ claim that it typically requires at least a ‘five-year marketing plan, with an annual budget of about US $40 million dollars per year before the average medical doctor is aware of the product and becomes a referral source’.

In the case of Hyperbaric Medicine, most physicians received very little undergraduate training on this form of treatment, with the majority of doctors still thinking that the merits of HBOT are restricted to treatment of diving complications.

Our experience confirms that the general public is not waiting for their local doctor to keep abreast of current issues and trends. Most patients attending our organization have an excellent working knowledge of HBOT, generally gained through Internet and related sources. It is obvious that successful campaigning of the benefits and merits of Hyperbaric Medicine will be more rapidly accomplished by targeting the end user. The informed patient demands current evidence, a range of options and the requirement to be part of the decision making process.

Oxygenation has been demonstrated to be an essential ingredient in maintaining quality of life and in overcoming numerous conditions and disease processes. ‘Restriction of vital Oxygen levels (hypoxia) accelerates degenerative conditions, weakens immune function, opens the gateway for opportunistic infections and generally retards the body’s healing capabilities. The sooner tissue hypoxia is corrected, the better the outcome. Most hypoxic tissue requires hyperbaric pressure to achieve a significant increase in oxygen delivery because of poor Oxygen solubility in the blood and surrounding tissues’ (Hooper 1996). In short, Hyperbaric Medicine is here to stay and will undoubtedly emerge as a major preventative measure of the 21^st century.

Why isn’t Hyperbaric Oxygenation chambers available in every doctor's clinic? It is clear that there is a general failure to understand the fundamental importance of clinical oxygen in human physiology. If this were not the case, HBOT would already have become just another tool used in the day-to-day practice of medicine, as are pills, surgical procedures and injections.

The traditional medical approach generally includes a course of pills, injections, and surgery and as a last resort, may be Hyperbaric Therapy. Changing views, public awareness and continuing medical support will reposition HBOT : immediate access and treatment at the local hyperbaric facility (probably in your local doctor’s office), then medications and injections, and as a last resort the surgeon’s knife!

I trust that this website will be an inspiration to the one that needs it – 'the forgotten patient'.

 

~ Mal Hooper (1996)