Meet Motive, a Wearable Device for Knee Pain
Motive Health launches on Monday with one goal in mind: treating knee pain. The brand’s FDA-cleared device uses muscle stimulation to strengthen quadricep muscles and relieve knee pain.
The technology is similar to that of cosmetic treatments like Emsculpt, which uses high-intensity electromagnetic therapy to tone and tighten muscles and skin. Motive Health employs neuromuscular electrical stimulation, which boosts muscle activation. Electromagnetic therapy employs electromagnetic fields, while electrical stimulation uses electric current through electrodes, according to the Blue Cross.
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The concept for the brand came about 14 years ago, according to Motive cofounder, Hospital for Special Surgery orthopedic surgeon and New York Mets team physician Dr. Struan Coleman.
“All the muscles that are above the kneecap, whenever you have a knee injury or any kind of knee surgery, all those quadricep muscles immediately shut down,” Coleman said. “That was the problem, and the solution was pretty straightforward, which was let’s take electrodes that stimulate both the nerve and the muscle and let’s put them right into a standard knee brace so that whether you have some early arthritis, or you’re having ACL surgery, or you have meniscus surgery or any kind of knee injury, you can have your procedure and then start the next day to stimulate that quadricep muscle so that it comes back as fast as possible.”
From there, the electrode-based muscle stimulation wrap was created. In the early days, it was used on patients who underwent ACL surgery but gradually was used to treat those experiencing general knee pain. To date, the device has been used on a prescription-basis for thousands of patients but will now be available direct-to-consumer on the Motive Health website for $399. Manufacturers advise the device be worn 30 minutes a day for the best results. It can also be used in conjunction with a smartphone to adjust levels and track usage.
Creating a product that didn’t require a prescription and was accessible to a mass audience was key for the brand, as it is reporting 40 million Americans have some sort of knee pain.
The brand is launching entirely direct-to-consumer but plans to look into other marketplace channels like Amazon and additional retailers in the future.
“We’re going to start with the Motive Health site and then we’re going to build from there,” Coleman explained.
Furthermore, the brand is planning to use its technology to expand its product offerings in the future to treat other conditions and areas of pain.
“We’ve figured out this neuromuscular stimulation, which is easy to use and painless,” Coleman said. “We’re going to reproduce that exact thing to treat low back pain, to build your abdominal muscles.…We’ve already designed something for the shoulder. We’ve designed something for the neck, for the foot, ankle, really anywhere in the body because the principles are really the same.”
Ahead of the launch, the brand declined to share projected sales figures. The device is now available on the Motive Health website.
