Southfield-based, X10 Therapy plans to end the opioid crisis that affects millions of current and projected knee replacement patients with its new X10 rehabilitation machine and therapy training program to revolutionize the physical therapy aspect of knee replacement recovery.
Knee replacement involves long recovery and training periods that also come along with the unhealthy use of opioids. The new program will shorten the recovery periods while also decreasing the need for opioid use. The expected reduced time period for recovery through the program is between 30 days and six months.
“By shortening recovery time, X10 therapy reduces atrophy and restores strength quickly,” says Dr. David Halley, an orthopedic surgeon who heads up the program. “Traditionally patients have lost 50 percent or more of their quadriceps strength at one-month post-surgery. According to The American Orthopedic Association it takes three months to regain range of motion and six months to a year to regain lost strength. The opposite is true for X10 patients who, on average, regain all or more of their preoperative strength within four to six weeks.”
Halley says traditional methods for treating knee replacement patients is the control of blood flow post-surgery. After surgery, the knee suffers from reduced motion and increased pain due to inflammation of scar tissue. To avoid this, physical therapists continuously train the knee to avoid blood flow from traveling into it. Though this method works eventually, it takes a long period of time as well as the use of opioids prior to almost every therapy session.
He says X10 Therapy takes a different approach. Its treatment strategy involves the use of their new machine, physical therapists, and as well as a strict treatment schedule for the patient’s knee. Prior to the knee replacement, the patient will receive the machine from X10 Therapy to prepare it for use. The machine’s sole purpose is to slowly manipulate the knee’s stiffness and to allocate different pressure points to continually shift blood flow.
Treatments with the machine are recommended three times a day every day of the week for approximately 30 minutes. The machine will not just treat the knee itself but consistently update designated therapists on the current statuses of it.
The machine was created by Halley of Franklin and engineer Paul Ewing and is patented. The machine was also created so the users can change the different pressure settings to avoid exceeding their pain threshold, hence the decrease in the need of opioids through the X10 Therapy process.
“Working just under a patient’s pain threshold avoids damaging the knee and causing further swelling and reducing the need for prescription pain medication,” Ewing says. “While traditional therapists play a critical role in rehabilitation, this smart technology in the X10 will precisely repeat motions a human cannot emulate.”
Besides Michigan, the X10 Therapy is available in most other states and Washington, D.C.
