HOW DOES THIS SPINE REHABILITATION DEVICE WORK?

Firstly, SPINEO is today the only medical device present on the market offering the chance of working on the deep muscles surrounding the vertebral column. More over, this device especially allows the patients to develop these deep muscles in order to treat & prevent various spine diseases. 

Deep muscle development is the real added value of this product as today, all exercises prescribed by physiotherapists only help maintaining these muscles in their state and not develop them. SPINEO allows this as the patient works against a resistance (a force sensor) that is located above his/her head which gives a live feedback of the force applied on a tablet located in front of the patient.

While using SPINEO, the patient is asked to straighten his vertebral column. In other words, he is asked to grow himself up and stand in a more adequate posture. By doing so, the deep muscles surrounding the spine are hence mobilized and doing the exercises prescribed by SPINEO over a short period of time (say a month) considerably help treating  & preventing pathologies such as hernia, low back pain, scoliosis, etc...

The use of SPINEO consists of two phases: 

• I. Setting up SPINEO according to the patient (Only required once as the results are saved in a patient data file).
• II. Doing SPINEO's training exercises: This phase is for deep muscle development and depends on the results gathered in phase 1.

This phase is only required to be done once. Firstly, the patient places his/her feet on a platform that gives a live feedback of how the weight is distributed. A force sensor (located above the patient's head) is than lowered until it reaches the patient's head. Once it touches the head of the patient, this sensor is than elevated around 1 cm above the normal height of the patient. We do this as consequently, when the patient starts straightening his/her spine, he/she seeks to touch and push this sensor. Nowadays, most physiotherapists prescribe exercises where they ask their patients to walk straight with a weight on their head. The issue with these exercises is that it creates a crush effect on the spine (effect not created with SPINEO as the sensor is located slightly above the patients head and he has to grow himself up to push it).

Once proper positioning of the sensor is done, 3 assessments are performed to evaluate the patient and calibrate the SPINEO according to his/her performance. The results obtained during this phase I. will then be used to create the adequate training program for the patient of phase II. The 3 assessments of phase I. are:

• 1) MVC : Maximum Voluntary Constraint.
• 2) ETL : Endurance Time Limit.
• 3) ISC : Intermittent Spontaneous Contraction.

This is an endurance assessment. The patient is asked to straighten his spine, push the sensor and maintain his/her position during the longest time possible. A live feedback of the force applied on the sensor is shown on the screen of the tablet (blue curve) and the patient has to maintain the force applied between a green and orange curve (both green and orange curve are chosen according to the MVC), see figure 2: ETL evaluation. The green curve represents 50% of the MVC result and the orange curve 70% of the MVC. Once the ETL is performed, the results are saved in the patient file.

Finally, the ISC exercise. This is a dynamic assessment as the patient is asked to straighten his spine to push the sensor until it reaches 70% of the MVC initially calculated (see Figure 3: ISC evaluation 1). Once the force is reached, the patient is asked to return to his/her normal position (see figure 4: ISC evaluation 2) and he/she has to repeat this movement during 2 min.

This is done so that SPINEO can know how many times the patient can perform ISCs over this period of time. The results are then saved in the patient file.

The completion of these three assessments marks the end of phase I. and let SPINEO program the most adequate training program for the patient. However, please note that the physiotherapist can modify this program if needed.

At the start of this phase, the SPINEO provides the patient with an intensive training programme to strengthen and develop the deep muscles around the spine, pushing him/her to surpass the abilities initially calculated in phase I. The physiotherapist no longer needs to be present at the patient's side all the time as the exercises are indicated on the tablet. SPINEO therefore saves the practitioner considerable time. Moreover, the physiotherapist can create a personalised training programme for the patient.

Finally, a report is provided to the practitioner at the end of each session so that he can check that his patient has worked well.

To conclude, SPINEO is a new medical device that helps developing the deep muscles around the spine by pushing the patient into straightening his/her vertebral column. Using this innovative tool helps treating & preventing many pathologies linked to spine, pathologies that are nowadays very present in our society.

In terms of money, time is gained as the product is provided with a user friendly interface for both the physiotherapist and the patient. Physiotherapists are therefore able to take care of additional patients once SPINEO has been calibrated for the patient. The physios are for example no longer required to always be present during the endurance exercises.