Category: MedTech
NextStep Robotics is almost finished with a clinical trial to prove that its robots can help stroke patients learn to walk properly again.
Bradley Hennessie, the Baltimore startup's founder, initially planned to become a physical therapist but is now developing a new tool doctors can use to help patients regain their mobility. Alongside the clinical trial, set to be finished in August, the 11-person company has raised $1 million of a planned $1.5 million funding round. Hennessie built the product after realizing many patients would hit a wall in their recovery because doctors did not have the most advanced training and equipment available to them.
“Right now, six months after a stroke, patients are told there's nothing that can be done to help you improve any further,” Hennessie said. “We know that's not necessarily true. It just takes specific training, but our robot makes it easy for therapists to do that.”
The robot is already on the market as an exercise device but is still awaiting Food and Drug Administration approval so the company can claim it has therapeutic benefits. The device, called AMBLE, is intended to treat a specific subsection of patients suffering from foot drop, a condition where people have trouble lifting the front part of the foot, making it difficult to walk. There is a large market for the device; just under 800,000 people suffer from a stroke every year, and around a third of them develop foot drop.
Hennessie worked with many of these stroke patients as an undergraduate student at Towson University through an internship at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Hospital. His experience in the ward taught him how patients struggled with physical therapy because foot drops made it challenging to move.
“I trained a few hundred stroke patients on the treadmill,” Hennessie said. “I got to know the population and grew a great affinity towards working with them.”
NextStep Robotics does not plan on stopping with the ankle robot. The company is working on a second product, REACH, focused on helping people regain mobility in their arms.
