A pilot trial of combined hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) and a Lifestyle Medicine (LM) program for multimorbid conditions

Role

Supervisor

Description

Lifestyle Medicine is a rapidly emerging modality of treatment to optimise chronic disease management and prevention. Its application is underutilised in primary and tertiary healthcare with research showing low risk and great benefit with this non-conventional approach. Lifestyle medicine incorporates 6 pillars of health and wellbeing, including nutrition, physical activity, minimising stress, enhancing sleep, addressing addictive behaviours and maintaining community connectedness. Patients at the Department of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine (DDHM) have treatment plans that are daily Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) sessions undertaken in a compression chamber. The daily treatments can extended upwards of 4-8 weeks. The majority of patients have 2 or more chronic conditions (multimorbidity) and take 5 or more medications (polypharmacy). Multimorbidity and polypharmacy are known to increase non-adherence to medical advice, risk of side effects, cost to the patient and health system, and shorten quality and quantity of life. Lifestyle Medicine reduces severity of chronic disease and supports health and wellbeing, thereby reducing the overall burden of illness and its impact on the person and healthcare services. The DDHM provides the perfect opportunity for a patient-centred LM approach that can be attached to standard care with minimal interruption to services, staff, patients, or budget, with provision of a template that can be adapted to meet acceptability and feasibility feedback from participants and staff. The LM program supports the overaching goals of HBOT integration by supplementing a siloed approach to health provision with a LM group based program during standard patient care in the DDHM. This program will ideally enhance patient health, wellbeing and service satisfaction, plus support staff satisfaction through their involvement with provision of holistic health care.

Date

05 May 2025 - 27 Jun 2025

Project Type

N/A

Keywords

chronic disease;medicine;lifestyle medicine;nutrition;group;sleep;physical activity;stress