| hyperbaric | <physics, physiology> Characterised by greater than normal pressure or weight, applied to gases under greater than atmospheric pressure, as hyperbaric oxygen or to a solution of greater specific gravity than another taken as a standard of reference. Origin: Gr. Baros = weight (04 Mar 1998) |
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| hyperbaric anaesthesia | Inhalation of depressant gases or vapors at pressures greater than 1 atmosphere, especially as a means of producing general anaesthesia with agents too weak to produce anaesthesia at 1 atmosphere. (05 Mar 2000) |
| hyperbaric chamber | <apparatus> A pressurised chamber that allows for the delivery of oxygen in higher concentrations for therapeutic benefit. Useful in the treatment of severe burns, peripheral vascular disease, carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression illness. (27 Sep 1997) |
| hyperbaric medicine | The medicinal use of high barometric pressure, usually in specially constructed chambers, to increase oxygen content of blood and tissues. (05 Mar 2000) |
| hyperbaric oxygen | High pressure oxygen, oxygen at a pressure greater than 1 atmosphere. See: hyperbaric oxygenation. Singlet oxygen, an excited or higher energy form of oxygen characterised by the spin of a pair of electrons in opposite directions, whereas electron spin is unidirectional in normal molecular oxygen Because of its great reactivity, singlet oxygen is a probable intermediate in most photo-oxidation reactions. Although it exists for no more than 0.1 sec, it may react with atmospheric pollutants to foster smog formation and may have harmful biological effects. Triplet oxygen, the normal unexcited state of O2 in the atmosphere, in which the unpaired pair of electrons are so displaced that their magnetic fields are oriented in the same direction, resulting in paramagnetism; each of the heat-generated spectral lines of such oxygen can be split by a magnetic field into a triplet. Compare: singlet oxygen. (05 Mar 2000) |
| hyperbaric oxygen therapy | <physiology> A pressurised chamber that allows for the delivery of oxygen in higher concentrations for therapeutic benefit. Useful in the treatment of severe burns, peripheral vascular disease, carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression illness. (04 Mar 1998) |
| hyperbaric oxygenation | The therapeutic intermittent administration of oxygen in a chamber at greater than sea-level atmospheric pressures (three atmospheres). It is considered effective treatment for air and gas embolisims, smoke inhalation, acute carbon monoxide poisoning, caisson disease, clostridial gangrene, etc. (12 Dec 1998) |
| hyperbaric spinal anaesthesia | Spinal anaesthesia in which spread of local anaesthetic solution in the subarachnoid space is controlled by adjusting the position of the patient when the density of local anaesthetic is made greater than the density of cerebrospinal fluid (i.e., hyperbaric) by the addition of glucose. (05 Mar 2000) |