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A collaboration between UAB and Southern Research has officially unveiled its first product, a treadmill designed for use in physical therapy of patients with gait or balance impairments.

The ResistX treadmill was developed by the Alliance for Innovative Medical Technology, which is a partnership between UAB and Southern Research, a non-profit institute that conducts research in the development of new drugs and medical devices.

“The main goal for AIMTech is to help accelerate the development and commercialization of medical device ideas coming out of the university,” said Robert Hergenrother, the director of AIMTech and a professor of biomedical engineering at UAB. “I’d say the development part, the D of R and D, and the commercialization — kind of getting some additional assistance based on some of the capabilities that Southern Research has.”

Much of the funding for the project came from a $164,800 grant from the Alabama Innovation Fund, which is administered by the Alabama Chamber of Commerce and provides funding for promising research conducted in state universities and organizations. The base treadmill was provided by a company called Woodway, which provides high-performance treadmills for physical therapy and athletic settings.

The goal of designing ResistX came from a need of a treadmill that could accommodate patients with gait or balance impairments, who often have difficulty using a traditional treadmill, which can be vital for physical therapy treatments.

“For many of these patients, unassisted walking would be the most beneficial form of therapy, but due to their conditions, they are unable to walk on the treadmill,” said Ryan Kailey, a UAB Kinesiology student and Physical Therapy Technician at Benchmark Physical Therapy. “While other therapy techniques can help improve them tremendously, the ability to have them walk unassisted in a safe environment would transform therapy, especially in older populations.”

With that goal in mind, the treadmill includes safety features such as harnesses and a backstop to prevent the patient from falling or being thrown from the device should they trip or lose their balance. According to Hergenrother, patients might be hesitant to use traditional treadmills to their fullest extent for fear of injury.

“On a typical treadmill, the way you kind of get higher work output is one of two ways, or a combination of them,” Hergenrother said. “You turn up the speed as well as turn up the incline, the angle on that treadmill. And if you can imagine someone with a gait or balance impairment running really fast, and running really fast uphill — is kind of a scary proposition. And so what we’re doing is putting this in sort of less scary environment.”

The treadmill was officially unveiled at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Boston, which was held May 31 through June 4. Woodway provided the booth space for the project. Hergenrother said that the reaction at the meeting was very positive.

“They saw that this was quite a bit different and it was fun to kind of see the gears turning as people were thinking how they might be able to use this with their patient populations,” Hergenrother said.

Now that the conference is over, the treadmill has been shipped back to Birmingham, where it will be installed in the office of Chris Hurt, Ph.D., the co-inventor of the treadmill, for further research. On the business side, Hergenrother said that AIMTech plans to follow up with potential commercial partners with the goal of eventually commercializing the ResistX treadmill. 

One of the more notable aspects of the design process was how quickly AIMTech developed a working prototype of the treadmill, which Hergenrother attributes to the collaboration with the engineering team of Southern Research, the need to secure funding and the deadline to present the treadmill at the American College of Sports Medicine conference.

“So part of this was that we had a very hard and fast goal, or deadline that we needed to meet to be able to ship it out to there,” Hergenrother said. “But the other part is getting some of the funding from the Alabama Department of Commerce and then using the Southern Research engineering team to really kind of design this and put it together and having a dedicated group to focus on this project.”

According to Hergenrother, the experience developing ResistX will help AIMTech streamline the development process for future projects. 

“I think we got some good feedback, I think that helped adjust some of our thinking on things and I think help set up a very nice collaboration between Southern Research and UAB in terms of working as a true team to build the product,” Hergenrother said.