06/17/2026
Does HBOT help a person with stroke recovery? It absolutely can!
Whether you are using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) or not for stroke recovery, the goal we have as providers post stroke is to help a patient regain as much function as possible.
In order to heal and regain function, we have to work to help shrink the penumbra (area of dormancy) down to the smallest amount of space possible.
If you are using HBOT post stroke in addition to PT, OT, or other exercise related therapies, starting with HBOT can help to oxygenate the area and start to wake it up.
Then, we can revisit PT and OT to work on fine motor and gross motor skills. That way we can decrease spasticity, improve speech, and/or improve motor control.
So, we wouldn't be doing hyperbaric INSTEAD of those other therapies.
At one point, we actually want to be doing HBOT in addition to those therapies to really get the most out of both worlds.
If you incorporate HBOT with PT and OT therapies, you should actually start to get another round of improvements from a lot of the different types of issues that occurred from the stroke.