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Dartmouth company bracing for influx

Rib-hugging fit provides greater stability for those with moderate to severe low back pain

BILL SPURR THE CHRONICLE HERALD bspurr@herald.ca @Billspurr

Chris Cowper-smith has a PHD in neuroscience, which not everyone can relate to, but much more common were the injuries he suffered playing squash and ultimate Frisbee, and which provided the impetus for his business.

Like everyone who's had a traumatic back injury, Cowpersmith, founder and CEO of Spring Loaded Technology in Dartmouth, remembers it vividly.

“I was right at the front of the court, taking a cross court shot and twisting and I felt something just let go in my lower back. I kept playing and the next day I could barely walk,” he said of the injury that took more than a year and a half to rehab.

It was on the ultimate field that he tore up his knee, and the two injuries exposed him to products he found wanting.

“I wore knee braces and realized they were OK for stability, but didn't really offer much for mobility and rehab,” he said. “So that's where the original idea came from for the knee brace. The back brace was the same thing. I got to experience these other products and realized there was room for innovation.

“In my PHD, I was working with stroke patients on rehabilitation protocols to improve movement. I really enjoyed the work I was doing, it was academically very stimulating but I was probably 30 years away from helping someone directly. I was a bit frustrated by the lack of real-world impact of my work.”

Subsequent entrepreneurship classes led to the creation of Spring Loaded's first knee brace.

Fittingly for the third generation, to be rolled out in a few months, production will be done on site using 3D printing to build the braces.

“It'll provide unloading in a sleeker package,” said Cowpersmith, adding that his knee and back braces both use powerful springs and the principle of unloading to provide relief. “It provides extension assistance, so by helping someone as they're standing up, for example, we're able to transfer weight away from the knee into the brace and it unloads the knee.”

3D printing is new to Spring Loaded and might mean new jobs for the company, which now employs 34 people in engineering, production, sales and marketing. They switched gears to produce face shields during the height of the pandemic.

For the knee braces, Spring Loaded machines the springs and creates the straps and padding, all in house. But since making the back braces requires different machinery, they're manufactured by a U.S. partner. That's not the only challenge. “COVID completely shut down our ability to do inperson fittings, so we shifted to an entirely online and virtual model,” said Cowper-smith. “We were doing remote fittings over Zoom or on the phone for both products, and we were able to keep going in that way but it really did delay the rollout of this product.”

The company developed videos to walk people through the fitting process, which included instructions on how to cut the brace to size. The system, Cowper-smith estimates, has been about 90 per cent successful.

It has also expanded the market from local people getting fitted in person to customers across North America.

“Traditional back braces that are custom fabricated for people with moderate to severe low back pain are good at relieving pain but they really restrict movement. They kind of hug you all around the rib cage and the abdomen and they provide stability, and just by reducing the amount of movement going through the joint, they reduce pain,” Cowpersmith said.

“What this brace does differently is, it hugs you between the hips and the rib cage and provides compression to the abdomen, which actually unloads the spine. The end result is a brace that will allow you to stay active and maintain movement while reducing pain,” he said.

The back brace, called Lumbrella, sells for $1,800, and is covered by many health insurance plans.

“It's always tricky to get insurance companies to cover new products, especially the public system,” said Cowpersmith. “The public system in Canada is so archaic that we haven't been able to get insurance coverage for either product, so we really focus on private payers. In time we hope to get coverage through the public system.”

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2021-09-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-23T07:00:00.0000000Z

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