Miramichi man develops knee brace innovation

Bob Garrish says that for almost 100 years, inventors have been trying to make a device that can be attached to the leg and aid walking and movement.  He says there are patents that go back to the time of polio, and all the inventions were based on 4 or 5 similar ideas or principals, but none of them worked.  Until now.

Bob Garrish is PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at Dalhousie University.  He is the son of Ginette and Barry Garrish.  Bob has partnered with two other student from  different disciplines (business and neuroscience), to develop  a mechanical hinge that improves upon existing knee braces -- it absorbs weight when standing and adds power when moving. The three have launched the  "Spring Loaded Technologies Inc." company to support the development of the hinge, and it all started as a class project last September.

Shea Kewin, the business student, brought the idea to Garrish and Chris Cowper-Smith as part of the Starting Lean program at Dal.  "Starting Lean" is a business course at Dalhousie University, funded principally by outside money.  The course is really a business plan alternative.  The program gets students out of the classroom with their ideas to discover their potential customers’ needs and wants, what is already available in the marketplace, market channels and strategic partners, etc.

Garrish says the group's innovative brace not only stabilizes the joint but also strengthens it, allowing the user to receive more power from his or her quadriceps.

The product, which they hope to license to an established device manufacturer, would grant greater mobility to people who have difficulty moving because of age, disability or obesity.  The hinge can enhance physical performance in athletes and manual labourers as well as provide mobility assistance in people with some types of movement disabilities.

The Spring Loaded product looks like any other knee brace, but it has one unique feature. When the user contracts the knee by crouching, it stores the energy produced by the movement. Then when the knee straightens, the device adds to the power of the motion.

That could improve athletic performance in several sports because the athletes would have greater leg strength than their competitors.

Garrish says that once the idea looked like a keeper, they formed an advisory council that consists of the top orthopedic surgeons, knee researches, and brace resellers in Nova Scotia.  He says he ready to build the prototype, but a few other details have to be taken care of first to satisfy the people who are investing in them (ACOA and IRAP).  These agencies want to see a patent before they see a prototype, so that is what the group is focused on at this moment.

MO))) asked Garrish if anyone in the industry has a seen a working version of their idea yet.  No, he said.  The best thing to do would be to have a working prototype so you could walk into a board room and plop it down on the desk.  BAM.

The largest market for such a brace would be the disability market.  but because these customers would be wearing the brace for long periods of time, it would need to be refined quite a bit.  So, the group is targeting atheletes and military uses for the time being, because the product can still be a little raw and work for them.

Garrish and his partners are hoping that the brace works so well, it gets banned from use by athletes in some sports.  That would be proof to the world that it is effective.  The three founders believe the device will have applications in high impact sports, such as skydiving, motocross or skateboarding, and other dynamic sports like hockey and squash.

They estimate that it will take about $100,000  to create the prototype, and up to $1 million for further product development.