MONTREAL - Many parents are paying big money for hyperbaric treatments under the belief that the blast of oxygen to the brain helps their special needs children develop.
The oxygen tent treatment is not covered by medicare but that hasn't stopped the parents from paying hefty costs in hopes that it could help their kids budge forward in the battle again conditions ranging from cerebral palsy to Down's syndrome.
Many believe that pure oxygen brought under high pressure to the brain could stimulate improvement.
"When it's your child, you try anything you can and honestly I wouldn't have continued if I hadn't seen a real difference in her," said Reetta Hasanen, one child's mother.
Hasanen's daughter Ilona suffers from problems that have it difficult for her to socialize and communicate.
Her mom says that she has seen the improvements brought about by the hyperbaric treatments.
"She started to understand sentences and sequences, like two things in a row. Like, ‘Ilona if you put your shoes on, we can go out and that sort of thing,' without a visual aid. It was the first time she started to understand speech," said Hasanen.
Lucie Brunet founded the Magalie Clinic a decade ago, inspired by her daughter who suffered cerebral palsy. She feels that her daughter benefitted from the treatments in the 1990s.
"After 22 treatments, she was able to say ‘Mama,'" said Lucie Brunet, founder of the Clinique Magalie.
The government is still waiting for more evidence that the treatments lead to improvement before funding.
Parents pay around $5,000 for 40 sessions but one group has helped cover some of the costs.
"We've helped 159 children so far, some of them many times. They go there once, and maybe they want to go back a second, maybe a third time," said Andre De Jonghe, founder of the fondation petits dauphins.
