Episode 115 - Enhancing Mobility: The Science Behind Exoband with Dr. Semplicini

I always love speaking to people who are working to improve the lives of people living with chronic health conditions. So I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Claudio Semplicini, an Italian doctor who co-created Exoband, a device aimed at assisting individuals with walking difficulties due to various neurological conditions.

Exoband is a lightweight, easy-to-use device that stores and releases energy during the hip extension and flexion phases to aid walking. The device has been tested by over 1000 users worldwide and has shown effectiveness in a high proportion of patients with various conditions.

Dr. Semplicini shared his journey into neurology, highlighting the complexity and importance of the brain and the wide range of diseases neurology covers, from migraines to rare genetic disorders.

During the interview, we delved into the benefits of Exoband for patients with spinal cord impairment, lower limb weakness, balance issues, and gait limitations due to fatigue. Dr. Semplicini emphasized the potential of the device to improve mobility and quality of life for individuals with walking difficulties.

DISCLAIMER
The information in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment.

Links and resources:

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Connect with Claudio Semplicini on LinkedIn

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Transcript

Kathy Chester: Hello, I'm your host, Kathy Chester, and welcome to the Move It or Lose It podcast, a podcast about all things that move the mind, body, and soul. The Move It or Lose It podcast is for information, awareness, and inspirational purposes only. I am not a doctor and I don't even play one on TV. So please consult with your doctor before making any medical decisions. The views expressed by advertisers, guests, or contributors are their opinions and not necessarily the views of the Move It or Lose It podcast. Today's podcast, we have Dr. Claudio Semplicini, our Italian doctor today, who's going with us with Exoband, and he's going to show some of the products and just explain to us how it makes it easier for us to walk and some other autoimmune diseases and share with us what he's created and all the science behind it. And let me tell you, his education is something I'm going to let you tell us where you've graduated from and the science and all of the stuff behind. First, talk to me about what got you into neurology.

Claudio Semplicini: So thank you, Kathy, and thank you for inviting us. First, I chose neurology because I believe it is just the best field in human medicine. There are several reasons for this. First, I would say that the brain is one of the most fascinating organs, with its deep complexity and immense relevance. It's what makes humans different from other species. And second, neurology encompasses a wide range of diseases, from very mild to very severe, from very rare to very common conditions. It covers everything, from migraines to ultra-rare genetic disorders. And it involves also different organs, not just only brain, but also nerves and muscles. And third, the last but not least, I think that, especially when I graduated in Neurology in Padua, But even now, in neurology, there is still much to discover, including disease mechanisms, diagnostic tools, and of course, the most relevant part, the treatments for such a high number of diseases. My initial scientific interests were in neuromuscular diseases, muscle dystrophies, AFS, spinal muscular atrophies, which are very, very rare and disabling diseases. I was fortunate to witness the first causative treatments entering clinical practice. So I think that this is very, very exciting for neurology.

Kathy Chester: And the school you went to, you went to a neurological clinic at University Hospital of Padova, which is a very residuous school in Italy. So it'd be like here, like a Johns Hopkins or a Mayo Clinic, something like that. So it's a Harvard or something. It's not something that's easy to get into.

Claudio Semplicini: Yes, it's over. A very, very old university in 1222, the foundation of this. So we made 800 years of history a few years ago. So yes, it's a very important school. It was a very good school. Then I also went to Paris and PTS Alpêtrie, another huge and very, very important university and hospital for neurological diseases. So I could see very, very important sites.

Kathy Chester: Very excellent. And so then you were in that field, you were at the hospital and something about watching the patients and knowing that they needed more, that you wanted to somehow create and help create devices to help them. What made you want to do that?

Claudio Semplicini: So I am not the creator and inventor. The inventor and creator of the device is Fausto Panizzolo. And when I was a general neurologist... 

Kathy Chester: I'm so glad you said his name and you didn't make me say it. Because that's like, I'm not going to... Yes.

Claudio Semplicini: I will repeat it later. Because when I was in general neurology, I frequently saw patients with walking problems due to stroke, MS, neuromuscular diseases, or other neurological conditions. And gait is a very, very complex activity. You need strength, sensitivity, and perception, balance, vision, and also volition. But it is also one of the most important daily activities to move from a place to another one. So these diseases have a profound impact on patient lives. In the same time, a few years ago, I read about Fausto Panizzolo's idea in a newspaper here in Padova. I knew him because we were schoolmates in the middle school. He was working on a very effective assistive device, Exaben, and he wanted to help one million person for working better. I saw his solution like a potential solution for many patients I treated daily. So I started collaborating with him and testing the device in my clinic. And finally, I decided to leave the hospital and join mobile to give my contribution by linking a problem with a potential solution.

Kathy Chester: Right, right. Excellent. Such a needed thing. I work on the other side, I work with movement. So I do what my field is, is exercise. So I work with exercise with our autoimmune world. So teaching them movement and how to do whether it's with bands or whether it's just body movement and how to connect that with the brain. And so it's so interesting to be able to use the devices and to be able to help connect that. So being able to use that for the different diseases, what were some of the things that you noticed first?

Claudio Semplicini: So I think that the most striking thing for me in this device was the ease of use and the versatility of the device. It's very easy. It's 400 grams. You see, I have one here, just 400 grams of device. It can be tested in a wide variety of patients. This story was quite long, but now we have more than 1000 users in the world, so we have quite a solid experience about the device. And I think that what is most appreciated is that it varies to test it and is effective in a high proportion of patients that are tested with.

Kathy Chester: Yeah, and now it goes and I read in this. It's not just in Italy, but it's in Australia, US and where else?

Claudio Semplicini: And in Europe, Europe, UK, US and Australia. That's where we are.

Kathy Chester: Excellent, excellent. And you started this how many years ago?

Claudio Semplicini: So I would say that it's quite a long story because it comes from the US, in fact, because Fausto was studying, he's a biomedical engineer, and he was making researches at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard when he worked on a lower limb exoskeleton. And then in the subsequent years, the development were dedicated to testing the device with numerous studies demonstrating firstly its potential and then its real effectiveness, and then simplifying the mechanisms and usage to make the exoband accessible to a significant number of patients with various types of disease and different degrees of severity. So we made this soft exoskeleton that doesn't need batteries, electronic components, just pelvic belt and two leg loops that contain an elastic mechanism that stores the energy during the hip extension phase and releases back the energy in the hip flexion phase and gives also stability. So the first devices were sold in Europe, in Italy in 2019, 2020 roughly. and now we are available from east to the west of the world.

Kathy Chester: Wow, so now it's so that when it goes in the device it vibrates it gives like a simulation?

Claudio Semplicini: No, it's just elastic.

Kathy Chester: Okay, gotcha. So when you go on YouTube it shows it's a very easy video so show them how it goes around the waist.

Claudio Semplicini: So this is a leg loop just above the knee and this is connected to a waist belt position The leg loop contains an elastic mechanism that during the extension phase stores the energy. The spring is compressed and then releases back the energy. The two are connected with a tool guide so that the patient can regulate the pre-tension of the device to make more strength, more energy release, a little bit more rigid the extension phase and then releases back more energy. So it can be used with MS patients but also movement disorders such as Parkinson's or weak patients like neuromuscular diseases or balance disorders like ataxias or other disease like this.

Kathy Chester: With MS, who would benefit the most?

Claudio Semplicini: I believe that all patients with walking difficulties can benefit from testing our device. So those with spinal cord involvement, but also those with weakness in a single lower limb, unilateral weakness, those who have balance issues, and also those whose gait is limited by fatigue.

Kathy Chester: Would it help with the circumduction, which is one of the MS things that I know we struggle with?

Claudio Semplicini: It depends on the severity of the spasticity of the lower limb. It can help increasing the movement of spastic leg. If it's too much, it can be quite difficult because if there is no knee flexion, it can be a little bit more difficult, but it's quite easy to test it. Just 10, 15 minutes of testing of the device can be sufficient to evaluate from the patient to evaluate if the device is effective for him or not.

Kathy Chester: Gotcha. And then you also have one specific for the foot, correct?

Claudio Semplicini: Yeah, it's a more recent device, ExoAnkle, so it helps with a similar idea, the foot drop, rising up the foot. It's made a little bit differently from the other one because it goes around the shoe, so it can be used with all types of shoes, and it contains another elastic mechanism that can be regulated with a magnetic buckle, so the tension can be regulated with this. And I think that the other good idea that our group had was try to make an easy device also for the foot and a device that can be used with all type of shoes.

Kathy Chester: Yeah, I like that. That's something I'd be really interested in. So very easy things that just makes sense. You know, like, this is just it didn't it doesn't seem so intrusive to put on, you know, sometimes when I'm when I'm working with the patient, I think we're in God's name. Did you get this? huge, you know, just intrusive thing that they have on and what doctor would force you to be in this thing. And it just seems like they can't get around or walk around because it's it's more this AFO thing that they have on than anything else. And so I love to see something that makes it seem more free flowing, that they can actually move around their bodies more than than something that's so It just ties them down and they can't move.

Claudio Semplicini: Yeah, that's what we try to do.

Kathy Chester: Yeah, it really seems like there's so much science to it. You can see how it would help you to move around, but would really give you the ability to go forward and to not be stuck, but would to kind of help you come up forward, not push you down. So it's kind of interesting. Not having done it, but I'm kind of just envisioning. I'll just try it out and then show it on the podcast and explain what it does. But it's very, very interesting. I asked you how many months and years that it took to do the Exoban and you said it took quite some time to get that all started. And now to be in Australia, how difficult was that? What was the most difficult?

Claudio Semplicini: So I think the most difficult it's rules and you know the bureaucratic part it's quite complicated. In Italy each region has different rules and offices and what else. Then if you go to Europe even if we are United States of Europe, each country has different rules. And then when you move from all over the world, yes, it becomes intriguing to discover how to manage all this. But it's very exciting to be and we are growing.

Kathy Chester: Well, it's so exciting to meet you. And it's always fun to find that something that this looks like something that's going to work. Talk to me about your team. What does your team look like?

Claudio Semplicini: It's a quite small but solid group. Of course, there is Fausto, the CEO and inventor of the device. There is me. And then there is a biomedical engineer who handles the technical and product aspects. And that contributed to most of the studies that were performed over the years. He is here since quite a long period now. There is also someone who manages administration, another person who manages communication. We also work closely with public and private centres that acquire our devices for daily activity or research, and also from researchers and professors from the University of Padua and other Italian and foreign universities who are still conducting or have conducted or contributed to clinical studies with our devices. So a small group with a high number of connections

Kathy Chester: Absolutely. That sounds wonderful. I know that this is going to be big and I'm excited to see where it goes. Claudio, I am so excited to have this interview with you. Promise me that you'll come back in a while and let me know where you've gone from here. And I want to try one of those out and talk to the MS world and let them know how this feels and what it's like to use those. If someone wants to get a hold of you, how can they get a hold of you?

Claudio Semplicini: There is our website, www.moveowalks.com. We have my email, medical@moveowalks.com, or my LinkedIn. My name is Claudio Semplicini. You can find me there, or contact our company. There are phone numbers, email, LinkedIn, social, Instagram. So ExoBand and Moveowalks can help to find us.

Kathy Chester: Well, thank you so much for joining us today on Move It or Lose It Podcast, where you can again find us wherever you like your podcasts, whether it's Apple, Spotify, and join us on that. And we can't wait to see you again. We're gonna have a lot of exciting guests and working together. And as always, you'll hear us say at the end of every podcast, we are stronger together. So let's do it. Let's become stronger together. Have a great day.