Ask anyone who’s undergone surgery to repair a torn knee ligament or a broken leg: recovery and rehabilitation can be tough and complicated. A Carle Illinois College of Medicine team has designed a new knee brace that combines three evidence-based therapies to help knee surgery patients avoid a common setback that can delay recovery by years. Their innovation aims to get patients moving again and improve post-surgical outcomes.
The invention is called Kickstart, an adjustable knee brace designed to prevent the long-term effects of arthrogenic muscle inhibition. AMI is a reflex reaction in the nervous system that protectively limits muscle function surrounding an injured joint. For most patients who undergo knee surgery, AMI is temporary while the joint is recovering, but in some patients, it can result in long-term weakness, muscle wasting, and limited ability to bend the knee. Prolonged AMI can delay recovery by years and reduce the patient’s ability to flex the knee by up to 90%.
Kickstart is designed to restore muscle strength and maximize recovery from common procedures like ACL reconstruction and surgical repair of a broken thighbone. Team leader Sam Mircoff explains how the device uses three established technologies – bracing, cryogenics (cold therapy), and transcutaneous electric neuromuscular stimulation (TENS) to help facilitate healing and return to movement.
- Functional bracing for stability: “External bracing around the knee joint supplements the native joint anatomy to provide stability and has been shown to reduce the body’s protective reflex around the recovering joint.”
- Cryotherapy taps into the use of ‘cold’: “By reducing joint inflammation, cryotherapy lowers the injury signals to the nervous system which in turn lessens the AMI reflex.”
- TENS stimulation: “Conductive electrodes were stitched into the upper pads of the brace and intentionally oriented to contact the quadriceps muscles. This allows TENS to be delivered in an optimal configuration for recovery. Providing external stimulation circumvents the inhibited neuromuscular circuitry, promoting muscle contraction to retain strength.”
One of KickStart’s key features is modularity, allowing the patient and their health care team to use or bypass the cryotherapy and TENS components depending on the rehabilitation regimen prescribed by a clinician. “Both components are also automated to pre-set parameters, ensuring consistent and appropriate delivery of therapy,” Mircoff said.
KickStart is one of the 2025 Capstone Innovations developed by CI MED students in collaboration with cross-disciplinary teams made up of engineers and MBA students from the Gies College of Business to design a solution to a health care challenge. KickStart Team members include: CI MED MD candidates Sam Mircoff, Sabrina Mann, and Nicholas Nguyen; MBA candidate Corey Magers, and biomedical engineering master’s candidates Lucia Jacquez, Cole Stanfield, and Landon Wellendorf.