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E-rehab market growing along with e-bike popularity



Don DiCostanzo has heard the stories. The 14-year-old with bone cancer regenerated leg movement riding an e-bike after having surgery. A woman who began e-biking to recover from a heart transplant. Another battling a muscular disease now is able to maintain mobility with the help of an e-bike.To get more news about electric bike, you can visit magicyclebike.com official website.

The Pedego Electric Bikes CEO knows e-bikes and e-trikes are beneficial for more than leisure and/or transportation. They also can be a rehabilitation tool for mobility and mental health. Research shows that outdoor motor-assisted, non-stationary exercise can help stroke, spinal cord injury survivors, Multiple Sclerosis patients, and people born with motor function disorders.Bosch eBike Systems also sees this added value. It published on its website an interview with physiotherapist Philipp Hausser, who noted among the benefits of e-bikes is that stress can be "regulated and adapted to suit the stamina and state of health of the rider. As a result, the e-bike is perfect for patients who have just had a joint replacement — it's an ideal means of remaining active. In this way, they can step up the stress levels in a series of stages. For patients who are less fit, the power assistance enables them to make up for any physical deficit."

Paul Boland, a research support team member with the Faculty of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom published a paper exploring factors that influence e-bike usage by stroke survivors.

The study said e-bikes have the potential to overcome some of the physical activity barriers that stroke survivors face and concluded that e-bike use was a positive factor in enabling some of the participants in the case study to cycle outdoors.

But "due to the small sample size and the number of participants who were able to loan an e-bike, further research is required to determine whether e-bikes are a feasible and effective intervention to increase physical activity for stroke survivors."

Boland told BRAIN that marketing e-bikes and e-trikes for rehabilitation could be a wise business decision for dealers. "It may encourage people in rehab to take up cycling, post-rehab, as a form of long-term physical activity and increase independence," Boland said.

Chris Nolte, the founder of Propel Electric Bikes, knows this well. As a U.S. Army Reservist, Nolte returned from the Iraq war a disabled veteran. Discovering the benefits of the e-bike helped him regain his active lifestyle — and later in 2011 — emerge as a successful e-bike dealer.

"As a disabled vet, I think of the possibilities of e-bikes offering more mobility and rehabilitation to vets and others suffering both physical and mental challenges," Nolte said.

The Sea Otter Classic Foundation understood such possibilities when it began a program last year to donate e-bikes to the Veterans Transition Center of Monterey County. The center helps veterans dealing with homelessness to substance abuse.

"It provides them that sense of freedom that they're yearning to get back," Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), a Center board member, told BRAIN in October.

While e-bikes and e-trikes can benefit rehab patients and those dealing with limited mobility, DiCostanzo emphasized Pedego's decision to equip their models with both throttle and pedal assist so the rider has an option on how much to pedal.

"I think the missing thing here is that the retailers that are selling Class 1 (pedal-assist) bikes only do not understand that these customers might have an ailment that doesn't allow them to pedal all the time," DiCostanzo said. "They can pedal some of the time, but they might be diabetic; they might have emphysema; they might have a hip problem or back problem, and they want to know that they can get home in case they're not able to pedal. The pedal (assist) system doesn't allow for that. It's that simple."