EP 164

Joe: Today, I’m chatting with Motus Nova, founder and CEO, David Wu, which is the first episode of a series we’re doing with Motus Nova about stroke, recovery, and rehabilitation. What is Motus Nova? You may ask, stay tuned and find out, oh, Intro done.

Hi, I’m Joe and we are the neuro nerds.

welcome to the neuro nerds. Very special episode today, I am interviewing the CEO of Motus Nova. What is Motus Nova? You asked we’re about to find out David Wu, CEO of Motus Nova. How are you? My friend, thank you for being on the show. I really appreciate.

David: I’m doing well. Thank you for having me so glad to be here.

Joe: this is awesome. This is actually really cool. I’m a big fan of Motus Nova. I think you guys do amazing work for the community. So first and foremost, I’d like to say, what is Motus Nova?

David: What is Motus Nova? It’s a as a company, our mission is to leave no physical impairments untreated. We want to make sure that everybody, regardless of your geographical area, where you live your financial status, that everyone has a fair shot at being treated with the best possible healthcare for any physical disability or any kind of issue that people have with food.

And right now we’re really focused on. And brain injuries, but we certainly want to expand that too, to all physical impairment.

Joe: So what you guys do, you guys have created something? How do I describe it? Magical? It’s actually really cool. You guys have something what’s called the motives hand.

I know you also have the Motus foot, but I am familiar with the motorist hand, which after brain injury, a lot of us in the community have issues deficits on one of our sites have, trouble functioning trouble functioning, arm functioning hand. What this does is it helps with that function, correct?

It basically it’s a helping hand if you will. And if you wouldn’t mind describing what the Motus tan is.

David: Yeah. Yeah. So the most hand and the most foot are robotic. We have devices and really they’re their exoskeleton. The robotic exoskeletons is what we call it in the the clinical trials in the scientific papers.

But that’s really just a fancy way of saying it’s a device with sensors. That can detect how much movement you have and then based on that information, make some smart judgments or kind of processing, and then provide some assistance to help you move through the motions that would be best to retrain your brain very much like the concept of a physical therapist or a clinician would, but we’ve tried.

We’ve encapsulated that in a in a piece of technology in a little robotic device, we call the motor scan and most foot, which is pretty amazing.

Joe: Now, when I think exoskeleton, first thing that pops into my head is robots. Immediately, I go towards either Ironman or Ripley Sigourney Weaver’s character in aliens at the end of the movie when she’s fighting the giant alien in the mech suit.

So I know it’s not like that, but in my head it’s a hundred percent that.

David: no, absolutely no. We get that a lot and believe it or not our first iteration. It’s called. It was called the Rupert high repetition, upper extremity robotic device. And it was this backpack that you wore, and it was that Ironman suit that you’re describing.

It’s like a jet pack thing you wear, it goes over your entire arm, your shoulder, your elbow, your hand, it seemed like it gave you superpowers. And that, that is oftentimes when a lot of people think when they think of a robotic exoskeletons but we’ve really taken that and distilled it down to one of the most demanded the most needed.

We feel like one of the most important movements that we want to help out with. And that’s this grasping motion with the hand. And that’s what we really focus on. Oftentimes a lot of people even if they can get their hand or arm into position being unable to hold a door knob and release that doorknob afterwards, or turn it, turn that door knob or hold a utensil or fork that’s really.

A lot of stroke survivors and those with brain injuries have trouble with. So that’s where we decided to focus our device. And on the flip side of that those robotic suits, although they seem really cool, they’re really expensive. Like we’re talking about 500, $700,000 each and in realistically currently out of the reach in terms of technology for us to realistically put into kind of everyone’s homes and really wouldn’t let us meet that net, that motto, that mission we talked about earlier, which is to expand access to more people rather than the restrict access to only those that can afford those humongous price tags.

Joe: It’s an amazing piece of equipment. And also who doesn’t have three fourths of a million dollars just lying around to purchase a full mech suit. Now the Motus Nova, the name Motus Nova, where did the name Motus come from?

David: No, that’s a great question. And that’s we get that a lot. It’s as with many things in the medical and scientific community, it’s Latin for new movement.

And that’s really drives at the heart of what we’re trying to do, what or what our devices have been shown in clinical trials to do the, really the mission that we’re on, which is to rewire, help rewire the brain, bringing in that neuroplasticity and create new movement or new motion. So that’s what Motus Nova means.

Joe: That’s beautiful. I love that name and it just rolls off the tongue. Now, speaking of, the robotics specifically for brain, mostly for the brain injury community because we always, a lot of us tend to have the issues with the arms or one side of our body. What was the reason you chose to work with the brain injury community?

David: That’s thank you for that question. That’s drives at the heart of what motivates? I think a lot of us at Motus Nova we all have some personal connection to brain injury to stroke. The stroke affects 8 million stroke survivors in the us. There’s about 800,000 new cases a year every 40 seconds or so in the us.

There’s a new stroke. So it’s certainly something that, that I think has touched almost everyone. And personally for me I ha I’ve had family members pass away from stroke and for each of us that’s been something that we have ourselves have experienced and looking at what happens after stroke in the past, 10 or 20 years, we’ve really gotten a lot better.

Helping people survive that initial few days or weeks after the stroke with rapid treatment diagnosis, people being more aware TPA, these clot-busting drugs that we’ve found. The fact that I think that’s really helped people survive that initial. That’s been fantastic, but what there, where there has been innovation in that acute treatment.

There’s not been a lot of advancements in rehab and to some degree, it’s our healthcare system. We’ve gotten really good at saving lives, but really saving the quality of life we’re or restoring that quality of life has really fallen by the wayside with a lot of chronic diseases, stroke and brain injury, chronic stroke and chronic brain injury, really much under that category.

And at motorcycle, we saw how many people were being undertreated for their brain injury and for their stroke. We knew we know how people get better. It’s through these high repetition, high dosage rehab programs, constraint, induced movement therapy. There’s a lot of scientific papers that, that describe the incredible gains people get from doing a lot of rehab.

But then when we look at what people are actually getting, they’re getting a fraction, a 10th, a hundredth of what the scientific papers say, people need hundreds of thousands of repetitions, and they’re getting like 10 or 20 a day, or sometimes even a week. And for some people, none at all. And we saw that huge gap in treatment.

And we said, maybe we can do something about this. It’s really expensive to provide care and healthcare, but maybe technology can step in here and help with a part of that. So I think that’s really impetus for all of this. It was that we know how to help. So many of these people affected by brain injuries and strokes.

How do we do it? We use technology and that’s really where the idea of using robots came from to aid in that rehab process.

Joe: I think that’s amazing. One thing I do love is the fact that so the non brain-injured, I call you guys normies and we actually need more of you than more of me in the community.

We need more normies who actually care enough to try to figure out how, and you said something that I felt was very important. It’s not just saving lives. It’s the quality of the life that you save. A lot of hospitals, what they do is they just get you good enough to go home now. Good enough.

Isn’t necessarily good enough every single day. Like now that you’re home. Okay. What’s your quality of life going to be, some survivors have victory to them. What their ultimate goal is to literally open a door knob. That’s what they want to do and your product can help them do that. So specifically, how would you describe like what separates Motus, Nova and the Motus hand?

What makes it special as opposed to just going to an outpatient physical therapy?

David: Sure. In many ways it’s surprisingly similar. And I think that’s what drives at why this works. What we do is much your physical occupational therapist that you would work with in a clinic, the robot is able to assess how much help you need and help you through those guided movements.

And the analogy that I like to use is like trying to learn to ride a bike and the experience that a lot of us have had having a stroke or brain injury, Is like forgetting how to ride a bike or in many cases for getting how to walk or forgetting how to brass or forgetting how to reach out and to relearn those rewire the brain to regain those movements takes a lot of practice.

Sometimes, as we get older, it takes a little bit more practice than maybe when we were younger, but the principles are more or less the same, lots of repetitions, lots of attempts. And relative to these other passive devices maybe the spring-loaded devices maybe weights, maybe stretch band.

Those are great for stretching out the muscles and tendons in the hand, but they don’t really provide that real active assistance that you would get with a therapist or with a robot that’s responding to you. So back to that bike analogy, if you would’ve put on a glove or something that opens up your hand to where you want it to be, the problem with that is you don’t need your brains, not activating to open your hand, the gloves, doing all the work it’s like getting on a bicycle that rides it.

No matter how long you stay on that bicycle. You’re not really going to learn to ride a bike. You’re going through the motions that looks like you’re riding a bicycle, but you’re not activating your brain to go to relearn those movements. And that’s where it, doing rehab with a physical therapist or with a robot that’s responding to you.

That’s where the difference comes in, where if you’re not trying, if you’re not activating your brain and activating using those muscles with your brain, then the robot’s not going to just finish it for you. It’s going to react to what you’re doing. And by encouraging you to actually go through the movements, it’s you’re trying to ride the bike and you both with the failures and the successes, little by little, you relearn those movements.

So that’s really how I think it’s really similar to what going in and seeing the physical therapist.

Joe: It’s brilliant. So I’ve actually had a hands-on with the motorcycle. It’s a fascinating piece of tech. It really is. So initially I gotta tell you, I, okay. So here’s how I describe my tech savvy. I know of computers.

So my tech team is Felice all the time. I’m tech savvy enough to get things, I’m functional when it comes to technology. So when I see this screen, and then I see this actual robotic arm, it’s slightly intimidating. It’s not anything that I’ve ever seen before. And it’s just it’s this amazing piece of tech.

I literally, I looked at it for a few minutes and I was like, I think I’m going to have to ask for a little bit of help here. I didn’t, it was one of them, as soon as I got past that little, just, I got in my own way, as soon as I got into it, it’s literally, it’s just, it’s a click here.

It’s a click there. You plug it in and it’s ready to go. I was the Mo one of the most impressive things was how simple it was to get stuck. Awesome. It was so easy now. I am not the most tech literate person in the world. And if I can get it going, guys, you 100% can get it going.

David: I’m sure you’re giving yourself less credit than then it’s w I, thank you for going through that process.

We really focused on trying to make it easy because a big difference is that. We are doing it in the home. We’re doing all of this all of this rehab, we’re trying to get it into a really easy and accessible place. And that’s where kind of that innovation of access that we really are, try to highlight that we know how to help people regain their movements, but it’s often.

This is in place. That’s really can be difficult to access for a lot of people. A lot of stroke survivors and brain injury survivors can’t drive themselves or transport themselves into a rehab clinic to get this care that they need. And by bringing it into the home, having an available 24 7, that’s where we think we can really help out the medical community with bringing this technology to more access.

And part of that is making it easy to use. We prior to doing this our Mo motors, hands and motors feet have are in hundreds of clinics and hospitals all across the us. And in those cases, they’re operated by a clinician. There is a lot more complexity, all underneath the hood that we’ve needed to make more easy to explain and have more of the AI drive all the settings and configurations to what we hope is a easy to use experience.

Joe: It really is that again the most, obviously it’s a impressive piece of machinery. It just plain and simple it is, but the fact that it was so simple to put together, I was blown away by how easy it was. Literally, as soon as I plugged it in, I turned it on and. Is that it, I was really, I was taken aback specifically because, okay.

So the reason why I’m using it is, I’m talking about a product. I actually like to talk about something with that I’ve experienced. I just don’t want to say, Hey, Motus, Nova is amazing guys. I don’t want to do that. What if I don’t agree with it? If I can’t tell you from experience, Hey, I actually touched this thing and I did this.

I don’t want to, I want to be forthcoming to everybody out there. I love my community and I’ll do anything for my community. So I’m testing this thing out and I’m checking it out. So everything I’m saying is coming from firsthand pun intended, firsthand experience. I don’t have my deficits are very light in comparison to what they should be for the type of brain injury that I have, short-term memory loss mostly.

And then I have issues with my right hand. I tend to suffer tremors in my right hand specifically when the little muscles. So it makes it difficult for me to grasp on. I think I become very clumsy. I get a little bit of the shakes it’s, especially with the fine motor skills anything fine motor.

So in putting this on, I was like, okay, I don’t necessarily need it as much as some others in the community. I was surprised how helpful it was for me, how the helping hand of the motorcycle. But when the robot actually kicks in to give you that extra little push, it’s a little off-putting because it’s a machine that’s, it’s literally like a robot is grabbing your hand and giving you that extra little, you got a buddy it’s giving you the actual little push.

David: It’s strange.

Joe: It’s very strange. It’s something that I had to just immediately just dive into and accept. It was helpful. It really was. And I can understand how helpful it would be for someone who desperately needs to get in these repetitions every day. Not only the fact that you’re having getting a helping hand from technology, but the fact that you’re actually playing these little mini games that keep it fresh to keep it fun.

And my favorite part about this thing. So there’s a little weightlifting game where you’re moving the weights with your hand and you’re lifting weights. Now the little extra motivation is, yeah you want to do better, but you actually get to see some of the other people that are using it and you get to see their score.

Now, me being the competitive person that I am, and I saw Matt Matty, who’s a very good friend of mine. I saw Maddie’s name and I’m like, there’s no way I’m letting Maddie beat me. So it gives you that extra little. To go a little further and it makes it fun. It really does. I also like how you say it’s like riding a bike fun fact about Joe.

I don’t know how to ride a bike. Oh, that’s interesting. Now this isn’t a brain injury thing. I, as a kid, I moved around a lot, so I didn’t have the cool, like stranger things ties where you’re riding bikes with friends. I didn’t have that because I moved around so much. So then I had a point where I’m an adult and I’m like, wow, I never learned how to ride a bike.

So now here I am grown ass, man. I still don’t know how to ride a bike, but post brain injury. That is a goal. One of my many goals that I have in life to, to live life is to ride a bike. So yeah, this grown ass man, one day we’ll ride a bicycle, then I can actually say, Hey guys, it’s just like learning how to ride a bike.

David: No, and it’s never too late. The brain is incredible. The brain, the I think we, we learn more about it every day. And, but it is unbelievable how much he can be organized and how much it can change in response to its environment. And yeah, riding a bike. There’s no time limit on that.

Certainly we love to I’d love to join you someday and and then we’ll ride together. Certainly. I think maybe we’ll touch that in a little bit later about what I like to do. I love cycling that and that’s part of, my life as well.

Joe: That is awesome. And one day I will hold you to that. When I learn how to ride a bike, I might be a grown up. I might be a grown ass man with training wheels, but I will ride a bicycle one day. I make that claim. I’m putting it out into the ether. It’s already happening. It’s I’m going to make that happen for sure. So now I want to ask you about you.

What’s your background? What, like what, where did you come from?

David: Thank you. Thank you for that question. I don’t like to talk about myself. But talking through where I came from, how I got involved in this technology, I was actually part of, I helped with the logistics and organizing some of the clinical trials that actually had to do with technology that drives the motors hand and the motors foot and one particular trial that, one particular patient user that I can remember.

And we were working with the VA. And this was in a very, in an academic kind of with Emory university and the VA Atlanta VA hospital system. We were. Deploying these robots, this technology to rural veterans who had a lot of trouble getting care through the VA. And that’s, that’s been in the news or these veterans they’ve done their duty and it’s up to us to fill our end of the bargain and take care of them.

But some of these veterans, they lived in the, in this case, the Hills of north Georgia or in rural Alabama and had a lot of trouble accessing care on a regular basis for the stroke survivors with no transportation they could not get to the clinic to be cared for by VA, clinicians and NVA doctors.

So an idea was to take the care to them in this case using a robotic technology and I got to see firsthand how much of a difference that. This made this technology made in these, the lives of these stroke survivors, some of them were, four or five years, post-stroke still stuck in a wheelchair.

And just by being able to practice and do their rehab over again and early, we talked about kind of the similarities, I think, between what we do and what a clinician might do. And how similar the rehab is on the motorist and the most foot to what, you would experience into a constraint induced movement therapy type, where you’re doing lots of repetitions.

That’s also where kind of the similarities stop in these trials because the devices were in the hall. And as admin, the same model that we’re doing for the most envious foot, these stroke survivors got to do 1, 2, 3 hours of rehab daily, rather than something like that. One or two hours a week, maybe two or three hours a week.

And it was a magnitude. Yeah. More of repetitions for them. And I still remember very vividly to this moment. I could see his face. So after three months he was able to get out of his wheelchair and start walking outside. And it’s just so encouraging. In the smile that he had, that, thank you for not giving up on me, essentially.

The healthcare system there’s. This is something we call helping those, the system won’t the healthcare system said, you’re too expensive. You’re too difficult for us to provide you care. We just can’t right now, or in some other cases you have too little movement. It’s been too long since your stroke, whatever that may be.

The system has said no for whatever reason. And with our technology, with this technology that I was working with in these clinical trials, that there was this opportunity to really make a change and make a difference in the system where we can say, Hey, maybe the system’s given up on you, but we have the ability with this technology to give you another shot.

And we think you deserve, we think everybody deserves that shot. After seeing that, and prior to this, I’d been involved with, a couple other startups I was able to put together the resources to take what was really the technology out of a research company and put it into Motus Novo work.

We started about seven years ago to take this technology. I was working in clinical trials in the hospitals and put it into kind of something that we can commercially produced, not just two or three devices that can help five or 10 people, but, hundreds of thousands of devices to help millions of people.

Joe: That’s amazing. You said something that has bothered me in our community. You are now part of this community, David. Cause I appreciate what you’ve done for this community. And again, I’ll say it a million times. This community means more of you and less of me, we don’t need more brain injury survivors.

We need more people to help the people that we have in here. So in hospitals, doctors say this a lot and I, one of the biggest issues I have is after a brain injury, you’re so vulnerable. You’re so vulnerable is the perfect word. You’re like a newborn almost. You need to be taking care of you. You need a little bit of tender, loving care and doctors do a disservice because they go, they play percentages as opposed to the person.

So they’ll say things like you have six months, you’ll have all of the function you have in your heart. Or leg, you have six months. And then after that’s it basically. So now you just put it in this timeframe that is, and I forgive my language is bullshit. It’s not true. And to be honest, I always thought that because that’s what I was told.

And that’s what I heard. I heard after an injury, you have about six months to a year. And then after that’s it. That’s not true. That’s not true. It’s been proven scientifically that it is not true. So I am so thankful that you went in there and that you changed these people’s lives and that you’re actually.

Sharing with the world that, Hey, six months, that’s not true, maybe for a percentage of people, but there’s still a large enough percentage of people that can improve the rest of their life.

David: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And thank you for bringing that up. We have that same frustration, a lot of stroke survivors or a lot of those with Rangers come to us and say, oh, it’s past my golden periods.

And it’s past my three months. There’s all these names for this. It’s past my recovery period. And it’s like you said, it’s simply not true. There is no scientific basis evidence for that. In fact, there is very much evidence for the opposite that the brain doesn’t just turn off Lauren. After three months after six months, that doesn’t make sense.

You can learn something right. A bicycle at any, it’s not like at 27, your brain is oh, we’re done. We’re not gonna, or any more names. We’re not going to learn any more places, no information, nothing more, nothing no more coming in, no more rewiring plasticity. That’s just simply not true.

Now, statistically speaking, a lot of people make a lot of gains early on because there, there is a lot of low hanging fruit because there’s a lot of connections that just a little need, a little bit more help to get. So people do see, tend to see Good number of gains pretty early on, but that doesn’t mean those gains stop and what it really, it shows us is that our healthcare system only provides, this fraction of rehab that we know that people need.

And it shouldn’t be surprising to us that their gains slowed down a lot. Just a few weeks or a few months after their injury, and the scientists, the data shows us this as well. That shouldn’t be surprising that if we’re giving someone one, 100, the dose of the antidote or the drug or the treatment that we know helps them in this case, it’s rehab.

We give you one, 100th of it. Yeah. You’re going to respond initially. You’re going to feel a little bit better. You’re going to have some gains, but that’s going to level off pretty quickly because you’re not getting the dosage that you need. So it’s this chicken egg problem where we don’t give enough rehab.

And then we say, oh, I guess you’re not getting any better. So let’s stop all rehab and time again, we have stroke survivors. We have used. Five years, more, 10 years. Some, even 15 years post-stroke they’ve been told in other instances, they’re not going to get better, but when they get a lot of repetitions, they surprise themselves.

They surprise their clinicians. They’d go back to their clinicians that there’s a, wow. It looks like you’re making a lot of progress, what’s going on. And it’s almost like those clinicians are brainwashed by the system as well. We’re only giving this fraction and that’s what people get and people aren’t going to get better at it.

Joe: I think they’re doing a disservice now. Here’s the thing. I, I fancy myself a bright human being. I understand why. Now from what I’ve spoken to several doctors, literally several from around the world, right? Nurses, a lot of them say we play the percentage. So 70 to 80% of the people, the most function that they’ll get with Wiz within six to eight months.

And then after that, it doesn’t. So we just go with the percentage. Now that being said, that’s still 20 to 30% of the people that will improve. You’re just throwing out a huge percentage of lives because these are people’s lives that you’re ruining by their families and their families by putting out false information.

When I share this information with a survivor who let’s say, you know that I that’s it, I didn’t improve enough. I didn’t. And what’s horrible is they immediately go to the blame game. We’re very, self-deprecating, it’s immediate. I didn’t take advantage early on.

I really didn’t work as hard as I should have early on. And then I wasted my only chance. It’s no, you did it. It’s been two years. You can still get going there. There’s no reason to stop. Start now, start now and get these repetitions. It’s basically, if you don’t use it, you lose it, right?

Yep. The more work you put in, the more you’re going to get out of it now this is going to be a bit of a series I’m doing here on the podcast with Motus Nova. I’m actually gonna talk to, I believe one of your tech people, one of the guys that actually helped put it together.

So I’ll be doing an episode with him. And then finally it will be a three-part series. And the last reason I’m going to actually do a testimonial with someone who’s actually used the Motus hand and, have a firsthand experience. That person is going to be Maddie Niebank, who is just one of my dearest friends, who I actually met for the first time in person, a very short, amazing human being.

Now I met Maddie a few years ago online and just visual, just the visual. Where she was and where she is now is phenomenal. It really is. And we talked about the Motus Han before I was, really when we first started talking about, Motus Nova and maybe doing some stuff with the podcast.

And I asked her about it. She raved, she really did. So we’re going to get a first-hand testimonial for somebody who actually puts in the work. And I know she puts in the work because every single time I talked to her, she’s rocking the Motus hand and it’s inspiring now, anybody out there who is struggling with their hand with their arm, and you need a little you want that helping hand you have it here.

You, you sincerely do. The Motus hand is an incredible piece of technology. It’s very helpful. Again, I have a functional hand. I suffer, a few tremors. It’s not necessarily built for me. It’s built for you. It’s built to help you. It’s basically, it’s an electronic, physical therapist there to give you that extra little push.

This is literally, this is the future. It’s very Saifai. I have not felt like I was on the star Trek enterprise before, but I put this thing on and I was like, I think I just needed to be being done.

David: I hope he doesn’t beat me up. Scott.

Joe: It’s a fascinating piece of machinery. And I’ll tell you one of my favorite things.

Now, David is your energy, and your passion is one of the reasons right now that I’m like, yeah, I will do anything to help Motus Nova. I really appreciate. The passion to help because that’s all I think we, we really want to do, we want to improve other people’s quality of life.

And if we can do that, let’s do that. Now, the Motus Nova, how do you guys have a group on Facebook

support group? Because I think support is very important, especially amongst survivors, we feel very lonely and isolated. So can you tell us a little bit about that support group?

David: Absolutely. It really drives the heart of, some of the other clinical work that’s that I’ve been involved with that, that several folks at Emory have done as well, really looking at the community around brain injury survivors and stroke survivors, how a support group or caregiver is such a pivotal part to one’s recovery.

It’s as much of a physical or a journey, process fight as it is a mental fight as well. And for so many getting discouraged losing hope thinking, blaming themselves, thinking that it’s their fault, those traps can be so difficult to overcome alone and having a support network, having a community, having a caregiver is so we’ve found so important to the success of anyone in a rehab program, including anyone in in the mirror’s hand or the mother’s foot, from the start, we really believed in that.

And we’ve been building this community where we host sessions with clinicians, with world-class researchers of stroke and stroke rehab with brain surgeons running the gamut across the scientific and academic communities. And we bring in those. The speakers in those clinicians into help answer questions for anyone with a brain injury, whether or not, it doesn’t, this isn’t, this is just for the Motus Nova users.

It’s really open to anybody. That’s had a brain injury or know someone that’s had a brain injury and want to listen in one of them no more, or may have some questions. Is this normal? Is this, I have this problem. Is there something that that I can do to help? We want to give back as, as much as we can.

And in the beginning we actually looked around for something like this, and it was surprising that. Couldn’t find anything where it was clinician driven, read those from medical professionals that may be taken hour a week out of their day to help just answered questions in the brain injury community.

And so many of those questions are so similar that we found that just, helping somebody with one of their questions can help the community so much in batting away some of these misconceptions like we talked about earlier, Joe about that golden period as well.

And trying to explain or demystify a lot of these things, a lot of these concepts behind neuro rehab and neuroplasticity. You’re absolutely right. Building that community where we bring in clinicians and we bring in survivors that can talk to each other, of course, that’s another incredible component being able to.

Connect with someone that’s going through a very similar experience or there’s really nothing like that to know you’re not alone. And to know that, you can’t make it past this John did or Maddie did, and here’s what they did and that you can do that as well. You have that power inside of you.

So no we’re, I know Joe, you’re very much about building community. And we’d like to do whatever we can as well to connect stroke survivors of stroke survivors, clinicians with stroke survivors. Just everyone that, that is interested in neuro or neuro rehab or recovery and and just get continuing the conversation and helping each other.

Joe: Yeah, it’s a beautiful community. It’s honestly, It’s the greatest community in the world. It’s the dues to be part of the community. They suck. But once you’re in this community, it’s the most helpful caring, loving community in the world. And I love that, you have, you’re putting together other people look, we the best way to get through this is together.

So one of the biggest disconnects I’ve seen is between the medical professionals the caregivers, the family members, the, and the actual survivor like us, I, one of the biggest issues I had in recovery was I was talking to a doctor and I was saying, yes. So I feel whatever it is I was feeling at the time.

And he’s literally, he’s looking at a book and he’s saying, yeah, you shouldn’t be feeling that. And I’m standing there saying, yeah but I am. So I really wish that there was a way for, look I’m, I didn’t go to school. I’m not a doctor. There are they’re experts at learning about the brain and the stroke and its effect on the body and everything.

I’m an expert at actually having a stroke. You should be able to work with one another look you put together the motorcycle. I’m pretty sure that you worked pretty closely with the people that are actually using this. So I wish that there was a better way for all of us to come together and share all this information.

And I love the fact that you’re doing it on this platform with your group. Now, when you say you have speakers, is do you have them on specific days or is this just something that, when they pop up it’s, we just have it every once in a while. Do you have yeah.

David: So that’s a great question, Joe, and we’d love to have you speak to the community as well.

I think that would be fantastic to share your experience. It’s really we have sessions Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We have a lot of the. Scientists will come on Monday or Wednesday. But it’s ad hoc. We don’t particularly have a schedule and, as well, all of the episodes, all of the talks they’re recorded, they’re well, they’re on Facebook live, but they’re all recorded and we will post them as well.

So it’s, we’re not trying to, we’re not trying to hide content in any way. If you miss it, if you can’t catch it live, that’s okay. Whatever we can do to help provide that to you. That’s really our mission. And there’s no catch there’s. You don’t have to sign up right. I think you can even watch it without Facebook.

I think we do it on YouTube as well. Just tune in and if you want us to make questions feel free to either in the live chat or it’s a rehab power hour@Motusnova.com. But yeah, anyone can join and anyone can watch. And we really believe, we hope that’s something that we can do as well.

Connecting, like you said, the clinicians and the researchers to the stroke survivors they, they talk to each other in the hospital. In those 15, 30 minute increments, sometimes shorter than that, unfortunately. After you leave the hospital there, everyone’s got questions.

There’s things that you forget to ask or other things come up and it’s not like you have a neurologist on speed dial, but, by having clinicians that take a little bit of time, oftentimes the questions are really similar. So we’ve found that just by answering a few basic questions, it can help a lot of people.

And a lot of clinicians after they do this or times that scientists they’re like, that was fantastic. I, I’m glad that I was able to help so many people just by taking some time out. So it’s just bringing those people together. I think building that community and it’s just incredible how much everyone wants to be part and wants to be helpful in that.

Joe: Yeah. That’s, I’m all about community. I honestly think it’s the most important. It is to connect with another looks, being a brain injury survivor. It’s the most isolating feeling in the world. Yeah, I can. And I say this frequently and I truly mean it. I can paint the Picasso of explanations of what it’s like to have a brain injury.

You can never know what it’s like. As vivid a picture as I can paint, you’ll never know only we understand what it’s like. So having a group to go to to gain information, to ask questions, to even connect with other survivors and say, Hey, so I tried this and this did this for me. I think that is one of the most important things that we can do.

And the fact that all of that information is readily available, whether it be on YouTube or Facebook, definitely join this group, guys. Definitely connect, get all the information you can. And again, if you have questions. Ask if there’s a bigger picture out there in this journey, it’s not just about us.

It’s about others too, and also when you’re in these chats, share your story, share your experience. We need to do that because it, you may, it’s good for us to get it off our chest. It’s also good for others out there to know that they’re not going through this alone, they might be going through the exact same thing or, in Maddie’s case, the fact that she’s done so well, she needs to scream this from the mountaintops because there are other survivors out there that need to know that it can be done.

She’s living proof that it can be. And I gotta tell you huge chunk of that is the Motus hand. And I’m not just saying that cause you’re here. It like literally. So one thing about me, I don’t say things just to say them people tell me show you’re so kind. I’m not, to be honest, I’m a Dick. I don’t mean to be.

I’m just very honest. So when I say that, because when I say something, I truly mean it. And I truly mean it. When I say I am just fascinated with your energy and what you’re doing for our community and the amount of people that you’re helping is it’s mind blowing because it’s, I talk about reach a lot as well.

You’re not just helping a survivor. You’re changing a life, the life of the survivor, but the reach goes past that. The fact that you can change the energy because sometimes after brain injury, if you can’t do these things, you feel lesser than you feel like you’re a fraction of what you used to be.

So if you can gain back a little bit of normalcy, whether it be, Hey, you know what I can do now, I can actually pick up this drink. I can button up my shirt. I can do these things. I can brush my own teeth. What if you’re bringing back a certain quality of life, a certain amount of normalcy, which in turn, it changes that person’s life, but it also changes the lives of the people that, that person’s around their friends, their family, their spouses, their coworkers, whoever it is, the reach is so large.

It’s not just about one person guys out there. It’s not just about you. It’s about everybody. That’s why we all need to band together and help each other out. And with things like these groups to share information, to share stories, to educate ourselves, I’m still thinking. That you’re doing this, like sincerely from the bottom of my stroky heart, it means the world to me that you’re not just doing it, but also doing it with such passion.

That really, it speaks to me. And I’ll say this just with what I’ve seen in the small amount of time that I’ve been involved with Motus Nova and connecting with other survivors, talking about Motus Nova you’re changing lives. I really hope you don’t take that lightly. That’s a huge deal.

And I’m so thankful for you and the company for doing that.

David: Yeah, no I, and we don’t take it lightly and thank you so much, Joe, for the kind words. Absolutely. We appreciate that and all that you’ve said no we very much, I think, every time, someone posts on the Facebook group that about their progress, that they weren’t, they had to use a Walker before and now they can walk on their own.

We do high fives around the office. Every time we see that it’s and we do our manufacturing also locally, it’s an Alabama one state over in the U S and we send those as well, too. Those on the manufacturing line in the the of the manufacturing facility and it’s heartwarming, absolutely.

To everybody involved in this project. And I think very much so the gains that people make, it’s a huge motivator for us to do everything that the continue to do everything that we do. So we absolutely, appreciate from all the support from you and from everyone else in the community to keep us going in our mission to, to bring technology into this side of healthcare that’s honestly falling behind a lot of us.

Industries in terms of adopting new technologies and being on the forefront of using technology to improve and to help people. And I, it would be remiss not to give a shout, shout out to Maddie as well. Like you mentioned it. Absolutely. Maddie’s, it’s been a couple years since, since her stroke.

But she’s made amazing progress in the last 12 months or so, even in the last six months. And she’s a leader in how many hours, hundreds of hours of rehab that she’s done on the motorist hand. And we did the math on it. If you were going to regular PT, kind of two or three times a week, it’s four or five years of rehab that she’s compressed into a matter of months, not to take that away from them.

She put in all that hard work. All those gains are absolutely hers. We just love to even ride on her coattails then, and to be part of giving her the tools and, all stroke survivors, the tools to be able to do that high quality rehab they would be doing in the clinic, but also being able to access it on the day to day and just, turn their rehab in to the next level, in terms of the speed at which they can get repetitions and, let the brain do what it does best, which is to learn and to rewire.

Joe: And then that is fascinating. You too can be a psychopath like Maddie, really like this is a tool there that can help. And just saying that it’s four to five years of physical therapy that she’s knocked out in a few short months now, In and of itself that’s mind blowing.

You can do this in the comfort of your own home.

David: Here’s the best thing and playing video games as well.

Joe: Absolutely. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It doesn’t get boring. Cause really easily okay, I’m moving my arm again. It can be boring. It is not boring. I can say that firsthand experience. It is not boring.

I will say this one of the best parts doing it at home, you don’t even have to wear pants. I got to tell you if I don’t have to wear pants, I am all about it. I am to do rehab right now.

I’m doing this interview right now. He’s seeing me from the chest up. I might not be wearing pants.

Who knows? So it’s supposed to be speaking of, tech and things you’re bringing to the community. W where do you see Motus Nova in the future? Do you have any aspirations for, Hey, I want to attack this or this is where I want to be, and this is what I want to do. Or this is a new product that we’re.

David: Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s a great question, Joe. And we talked about very early one of our first prototypes was this multi jointed Ironman suit kind of thing. And from that we focused on just the hand and the foot. Certainly we want to expand out more joints the knee, the elbow and the shoulder, things like that.

That’s one aspect of it and, but, still trying to keep the cost low and as low as we can because really to fulfill our mission, we have to bring down the cost of rehab. And so far we’re at, rather than guided rehab with a clinic for clinician being somewhere about a hundred dollars, maybe even $200 an hour to something like less than $10 an hour.

I was where we’re at right now. We want it to be $5 or $2, a $1 an hour. And certainly with economies of scale, with more manufacturing with building, thousands or tens of thousands at a time, instead of just a few hundred at a time, that’s, what’s going to continue to bring down those costs.

So that’s one side that we really are focused on. How can we actually, rather than increase the price of our devices? How can we reduce the price of what we offer? That’s one side, I think looking to the future, another piece that’s actually really interesting that really excites me. Is the data portion of all of this.

I think that Dr. Nick Nick Housley, Dr. Nick, he’s a neuroscientist and also a brain injury survivor. She certainly can expand more. I think on a lot of this, he’s actually, we call them some of those gone dr. Nick he’s got a doctorate in physical therapy and another doctorate another PhD in neuroscience.

So he’s on, on both sides. He’s an overachiever.

And he wanted this to you, but also a world-class cyclist Olympic class cyclist for the U S and I’m sure that you guys will have fun talking about some of that as a teaser, but, we’re working on with his.

Our does a lot of science here, mostly he’s director of clinical research. We’re really excited about. The data that, that we can leverage between stroke survivors and optimizing care. A lot of what we do right now in stroke rehab. We’re taking so few measurements of how we’re doing.

Oftentimes when you first start rehab day zero, you do an assessment and sometimes it’s three or four weeks later before your range of motion or your movements are assessed or again in a rigorous way in a comparable. That is, and none of that is being compiled anywhere, put together and to see, how does how does different strategies does more rehab help different types of people because everyone learns every brain learns in a different way.

Right? Everyone’s gone to school. Some of us like notes, some of us to learn visually all different sorts of learners. We want to be able to tease that out with the data. And say, Hey, this person there, it looks like they’re showing signs that they can make a lot of gains with just a lot of high repetition or this other person needs more repetitions over time, lower intensity, but spread out and more, even more consistent being able to find out some of, these particular yeah.

With different stroke survivors, different those with different and brain injuries, we think can really take rehab to the next level where being able to leverage this data and see really get some insight into how the brain learns, how the brain rewires, what, how many movements does it really need?

We need to practice this movement today to really get the brain in the state where it will actually over, make the connections as it goes through the day and you, you sleep and that sleep also being such an important part to that learning process. Getting some insight into that I think is probably one of the most exciting things that we can do.

And we can also contribute to the scientific and medical community of how many repetitions, how much does it take to make a specific gains? And so we’re excited about the data portion in the long-term and how that can help the stroke community.

Joe: I’m fascinated with that because, just saying that it’s wow, as amazing as this product is now, it’s only going to get better.

It’s not oh yeah, the future, by the way, it’s going to be significantly worse. No, it’s not going to go from it’s not going to be like an old iPhone, every year it’s going to get better and better with all of this new information that you’re gaining with these, survivors using the product there, their improvements there.

I love this. I really do. And at some point you’re going to create like a vision Ultron, since he, Cynthia been, : it’s like a, it’s like a good coach.

David: A good coach gets better with experience. But a good coach can only coach so many teams or a good a therapist or a good clinician can only practice it’s called the practice of medicine. It can only practice so many hours. And so many patients day and one coach or one, one clinician can only know so many patients, but by putting this data together, we can really. Learn across the experiences of potentially hundreds and thousands of stroke survivors and brain and those with brain injuries and really help give back to the medical community as to what really, what really gets the brain going.

Joe: Wow, you’re just, you’re truly making an impact on the world, not just currently, but in the future, like this, isn’t a small thing. This is, I always say like life-changing, and when I say it, I don’t say it just to be grandiose, I say it to be it’s honestly life-changing, and I love that now with this product in particular, you guys, you are in charge, you’re basically you’re in charge of your own future.

The more you put in the more you’re going to get out of it, you can’t blame, that just wasn’t the right. Physical therapist, that person just wasn’t, this is a hundred percent. Your future is literally in your hand, pun intended again, it’s an amazing product. I’m so thankful that, you chose to put your energy and your, your vision into, out this community in particular.

And so my brain injury community, because it’s so needed, it’s honestly, it’s just, it’s so needed. And there’s so many of us out there that just. It can help so many people out there. And I really suggest that you guys go check out the Motus Nova Facebook group. Do you have the the social on that?

David: Is it just Motus, noble.com Motus, nova.com. You can check it dot com under testimonials. You’ll be able to see, I think it just updates with posts from our group. And you can click through there. It’s also facebook.com/groups/Motus Nova, or if you just search Motus Nova stroke support group on on Facebook, it, it should be it should be right up there where I think we just hit 1,900 members in our group.

And, we’d love to have you be part of that community.

Joe: Boom, that’s what we want to do. We want to all connect in and we want to all ask questions, gain, we need this information and we need this comradery and we all need to work together. And I love that. So David, I asked you at this point of the show, we are the neuro nerds.

All right. And me, myself, I’m I’m an all around her. Now, when I say nerd, I fancy myself, one of the cool nerds, but still a nerd, nonetheless. I’m a Marvel nerd. I’m a star wars nerd, as you can see, I have a big Jango Fett poster behind me. I literally have Harry Potter star wars tattoos on my body.

I have, I’m a gamer nerd. I have a Bioshock tattoo on my wrists. So what was, what is your nerdy?

David: What is my nerdom? What is my nerd? I love to do I love the outdoors. So I would say that something that has really given me that chance to be with myself to really really think and to release from my day to day has been cycling, has been.

And that’s, there’s really nothing like being on a bike, being outdoors and and having the world go by you and being on that bike and knowing that you’re the one. That’s propelling herself through this world. It’s a little bit of control, I think, in this world that sometimes it’s very easy to feel out of control.

That’s I think that’s what I do for relaxation. And I’d call that mind. My nerdom,

Joe: I sincerely do specifically because I don’t know how to ride a bike, but that’s even more motivation for me to learn how to let it down.

David: Yeah. I’ll be there on the day. I’ll come out and help you learn.

Joe: Yeah. I, so I’ve had several people try over the years and they’re like, Jesus Christ show. It’s so bad. I know I’m a pain. I can’t help myself, but I’m. I’m excited to know. Now, do you do mountain biking or strictly streets, a road bike?

David: I’ve done a little bit of mountain biking. I have some friends that some friends that, that work in hospitals specifically on the neurosurgical side that the brain surgery side.

And they’ve talked me out of all mountain biking. It can be dangerous.

Joe: you’re part of this community, but we like the area of this community that you’re at, and that’s where we need you. We don’t need you to be deeper in this community, David, we don’t need that.

David: And all power to everyone. I respect mountain bike. It’s a lot of. But everyone’s got their own level of comfort, I guess it’s the road bike

Joe: for sure. People in their pastime, they practice MMA. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be punched and kicked in the face. It’s just not, I don’t find that appealing, especially as a brain injury survivor.

So that is awesome. I truly appreciate that. David Wu CEO of Motus Nova, I am so thankful for you. I can’t say this enough guys. You can hear it, but I’m looking at David right now and it’s a different thing to actually see the excitement, the energy, the passion behind it. That’s invaluable to this community.

Like we desperately need that. And I’m so thankful for that. You’ve taken your knowledge and you’ve taken your energy and you put it in this community. I truly mean that you can definitely go visit notice Motus, nova.com search their support groups. Definitely join all the things. If Motus, Nova is something that you’re interested in.

Definitely check it out. Please do, I can tell you firsthand experience. One of the most simple things to put together, impressive piece of machinery. It’s very it’s so intuitive. It’s not like Ikea furniture guys. It’s not, it’s so simple that even an idiot like me can put it together and I’m just, I’m blown away.

I am honestly blown away and I’m looking forward to continuing this Motus Nova series that we’re doing here because it’s so good. For the community and I will do anything for this community. I just I love it so much at this part of the show. This is where I give out all of our social. So definitely give us a motorcycle@motorcycle.com.

You can visit my beautiful, tiny asking cohost Lauren at Lauren L Manzano on Instagram. Good luck. She’s back in work mode and she is super busy. You can visit me at Joseph rocks on all the socials. You can visit us neuro nerds everywhere. David. I am so impressed by your product. Yes, I’m so impressed by you and your company.

And I’m so thankful that you took the time to share with the community here on my podcast I’m forever thankful for that and everything that you do for, of our community and thank you so much for being on the show.

David: Absolutely. I’m so glad to hear. Thank you, Joe, for everything that you do for the community, we really appreciate, your work as well, building community and getting information out there.

And and, thank you for having me on and, we’re excited to, to do everything that we can. And of course you can find me at on Instagram and on Twitter as well at David U-Tech. And if you want to get in touch with us with one of our clinical strokes you can call us at (404) 939-3476.

Thank you, Joe.

Joe: Pull all of these are the phone number, the websites, the handles, all of them will be in our show notes. So definitely check that out. Hey, now you have direct access to the man. The myth himself definitely reach out, say, Hey, ask any of the questions you have. You hear it. You hear the passion, you hear the love.

Don’t feel intimidated. Please feel free, reach out. This is something that’s very important. This is something that you can control. You can control the outcome of your physical recovery. So definitely don’t hesitate to reach out. And one of these days, David and I will be right in bicycles together side by side.

Hopefully on Monday, I’ll bring my wife that’s 100%, 100% with the helmets, hopefully without training. Like an adults, man. And on that very strange note, David, I appreciate you again, definitely check out Motus Nova. I appreciate all of you guys, everything you’ve done for the community. And on that note, this neuro nerd is awesome.

That was awesome. I hope you enjoyed that.

David: very much. Thank you, Joe. And I love the energy as well. Really appreciate you.