NEW YORK, New York – A recent report shows more than 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from chronic pain. Many of them will have to undergo invasive surgeries or take powerful drugs to ease the ache. Now there's a therapy new to the U.S. for people with back, hip, or knee pain, and it all starts with a pair of shoes.
They're not your average sneakers. For 57-year-old Candelaria, these shoes are the secret to pain relief.
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"They put the shoes on and it was like magic, I could not believe it," she said.
Candelaria's pain started after she fell during her pregnancy. First it was knee pain, then hip and lower back pain.
"It got to the point where the pain became excruciating and unbearable" Candelaria explained.
She tried everything to avoid a knee replacement, but nothing helped, until apostherapy.
Apostherapy was developed in Israel in the 1990's. It doesn't require specific exercises. Instead, personally calibrated mechanical pods are placed on the bottom of shoes to re-align the patient's knees, hips and back.
"What we do is we can calibrate according to what we know that the body is trying to resist certain forces or shift certain things away from pain," said Nina Cha, PT, DPT, of AposTherapy NY.
The goal is to retrain the brain and muscles to walk in a way that takes pressure off painful areas.
"It creates what the founders call perturbation, a little bit of instability so that your whole body learns and relearns how to walk and how to position itself," explained David Levy, MD, Global Chief Executive Officer of AposTherapy NY.
The program lasts a year with patients wearing the shoes for about an hour a day. So far no studies have been done in the U.S. to prove its effectiveness but patients like Candelaria say they've seen the results.
"I have regained who I am," she said.
Apostherapy isn't cheap. It costs about $5,250 for one year and isn't covered by insurance in the U.S. Right now it's available in the New York City area, but the company does plan to expand around the country.
Additional Information:
Apostherapy is an innovative technology that was developed only a decade ago and has become popular in the treatment of knee and back pain. Unlike many other chronic pain treatments, apostherapy is appealing to many because it alleviates any surgery or drug treatment for the patient. The treatment is meant to fit in with the patient's daily lifestyle and usual activities and is able to treat variations of knee and back pain including:
- Knee osteoarthritis
- Meniscal tear
- Chronic knee pain
- Knee ligament damage
- Patello-femoral pain
- Rehabilitation
- Lower back pain
TREATMENT: Apostherapy uses a specialized shoe device that is personalized to each person. Instead of painfully "fixing" the muscles and ligaments, the device is able to re-educate the brain into working the muscles properly again. The patient only has to wear the shoe device for up to one hour a day to start feeling pain relief. The foot device is able to treat chronic back and knee pain by:
- Bringing the body into alignment.
- Changing the way forces travel through the body.
- Stimulating and retraining muscles.
With the continued use of apostherapy, the patient could have reduced pressure and strain on painful areas in the joint. As the patient continues to walk with the device, it is able to ultimately re-educate the body to adopt a correct and less painful way to walk even with the device off.
(Source: http://www.apostherapy.com/)