MS therapy centre’s on-site oxygen generation upgrade

When the South Wales Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre in Swansea, a member of the national MSNTC charity, was looking to expand its oxygen therapy services to MS patients, plant room space limitations, and reliance on infrequent oxygen delivery schedules, presented major obstacles. Moving to larger premises, and installing an Atlas Copco on-site oxygen generation system for 24/7 availability, have resulted in increased therapy capacity, reduced running costs, and the potential for heat recovery energy savings, as Arron Farghaly, Business Development manager for Oxygen and Nitrogen Products in the UK, reports.

Oxygen therapy involves breathing pure oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber at 1.5 to 2 times normal atmospheric pressure. Additional oxygen can extend the body’s ability to heal, and can limit some of the damage which Multiple Sclerosis (MS) causes. In the inflammation that is typical of MS, the transport of oxygen is severely limited by fluid leakage from capillaries, causing tissue swelling around the attack site. When pure oxygen is breathed in under pressure, more of it is dissolved in the blood than would normally be the case. As a result, swelling around attack sites is reduced, and blood vessels constrict, preventing leakage, and allowing tissue which is not dead, but ‘sleeping’, to repair itself.

The aim of oxygen therapy in MS is to minimise the amount of damage being caused, promote rapid healing, and to limit the scar formation which blocks messages getting from the brain to the limbs, thus preventing nerve function being restored and causing disability.