Clinical trials are underway on a device that can bring quick relief to those suffering with herniated, or slipped discs.

Clinical trials are underway on a device that can bring quick relief to those suffering with herniated, or slipped discs.
Photo Credit: CBC

Back-pain relief for some coming soon

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Dr. Keiran Murphy says he loves Canada, and many in Canada may soon love him. Dr. Murphy, who began his medical studies in his native Ireland, is the inventor of a device, currently beingtested in three Canadian cities.  If approved it will bring quick relief to people suffering with herniated, or what’s more commonly known as, slipped discs.

Dr. Murphy is quick to clarify that back pain has many origins, but previous tests in Italy on patients with herniated discs revealed a 72 to 78 per cent rate of major or complete pain relief.

It’s called the ‘Active O, ozone dispensor hand-held generator’.  Dr. Murphy had the insight in 2003.  When asked about the process of inventing a device such as this, he says, “The invention is the moment, like humour, where you make a joke, and you take an unlikely circumstance, maybe two of them and you create an unexpected association”.

Dr. Murphy has 62 patents for other developments and devices, but essential for him in creating them, is the ability to cross  economic divides.  So when designing he keeps cheap and portable as guiding parametres.

Some of his other work, such as the injection of bone cement into vertebrae for osteoporotic compression fractures, or the detection of stroke using brain vibration, or the use of drugs to stimulate the integration of bone cement into vertebrae, has been slow-going.  He says it is all a cumulative process, dependent on good mentors.

“I think most inventors struggle with access to funding, access to proto-typing ability, and social networking among potential investors or buyers of their device.”

Dr. Kieran Murphy is now the mentor in his work at the Techna Research Institute part of the University Health Network in Toronto, helping to streamline the process and keep the next generation of medical inventors movitated.

But for those with slipped discs, the good news is, the Active O, should be available in Canada in about 18 months.

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