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Hyperbaric oxygen has a checkered history as a therapy for various disorders, due to studies that were small and poorly controlled. A new randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial from Israel suggests it might be useful in people with persisting impaired cognition, fatigue, and pain for at least 3 months after acute COVID-19 (i.e., “long COVID”).
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy or a sham procedure were given to 73 long-COVID patients for 5 days weekly for 8 weeks. Participants were asked to guess if they had been given hyperbaric oxygen therapy or sham: Participants in either arm were unable to guess correctly. Symptom questionnaires, formal cognition testing, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the brain were performed pretreatm…