Healthcare Innovation: “Brace” to provide support/comfort and remedy aches in the neck/back in the general population while also reducing the symptoms of scoliosis to those who need it.

Group Members: Demir McRae and Weihang Ke

 

Asher, Marc and Douglas Burton. 2006. “Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: Natural History and Long-Term Treatment Effects.” BMC Journal of Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders 1, no. 2. doi:10.1186/1748-7161-1-2.

BMC Journal of Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders is quite literally an academic and peer-reviewed journal dedicated to research concerning the disease scoliosis as well as other spinal disorders.  In this article, the authors define exactly what is considered scoliosis and explain how the disease (of unknown cause) is treated.  This article will be extremely useful as it also displays the need for a simple, low-cost remedy for this spinal condition.  The authors are both researchers from the University of Kansas and are specialists in this field.  Their input will be valuable as our group designs our healthcare innovation.

 

Martin, Brook, Richard Deyo, Sohail Mirza, Judith Turner, Bryan Comstock, William Hollingworth, and Sean Sullivan. 2008. “Expenditures and Health Status Among Adults with Back and Neck Problems.” The Journal of American Medical Association 229, no. 6: 656-664. doi:10.1001/jama.299.6.656.

The Journal of American Medical Association is a credible, peer-reviewed academic journal that will provide plenty of background on the healthcare problem my group plans on tackling with our 3-D printed healthcare innovation.  The article itself displays a need for a low-cost and efficient solution to something that plagues many Americans in an aging population: back and neck problems.  The authors are researchers looking to examine trends in expenditures for back and neck problems.  This article will be especially useful in order to show why a lower-cost remedy is needed for those with back and neck problems.  Alternatively, there is a very similar article that I also found from The Journal of American Medical Association that serves relatively the same purpose.  That article is cited below:

 

Mafi, John, Ellen McCarthy, Roger Davis, and Bruce Landon. 2013. “Worsening Trends in the Management and Treatment of Back Pain.” The Journal of American Medical Association 173, no. 17: 1573-1581. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.8992.

 

Saint Louis, Catherine. 2013. “Study Affirms Benefit of Back Braces as Scoliosis Treatment.” New York Times, Sep. 19, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/health/new-study-lends-conclusive-support-to-a-scoliosis-treatment.html.

The New York Times is a credible news source that caters to a general audience.  Despite this, the Times often provides a cohesive, comprehensible summary of a more complex subject, especially in their health and science sections, which is where this article is found.  In the article, the author underlines the benefits of using a back brace to remedy the symptoms of scoliosis and emphasizes that the use of a back brace can avoid potentially dangerous surgeries for scoliosis patients.  This article once again displays the need for our healthcare innovation as it gives a personal anecdote of someone diagnosed with scoliosis and was embarrassed to wear her brace but also wanted to avoid surgery.  One of our aims for our healthcare innovation is to provide a brace for scoliosis patients that is small enough to be unnoticeable.  Thus, this article shows why there is a need for said innovation.