Start-up Calmar: New Therapies for Chronic Pain
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Since opening their doors not much longer than a year ago, Calmar Pain Relief clinic in North Providence has been changing lives. Medical director Dr. Stephen J. D’Amato, who has practiced at Roger Williams Medical Center and St. Joseph Hospital, has treated chronic pain patients from as far away as Texas, California and Alaska using a medical device called the MC-5A in lieu of traditional pharmaceutical medications or invasive procedures. “It’s cutting edge,” says Robert W. Smith, the practice’s Director of Business Operations.
How It Works
The therapy applied via the MC-5A, says Dr. D’Amato, is a type of electroanalgesia, a pain management method that employs a low-level current electric current at the site of the pain. In short, the method communicates a message of normality to the central nervous system, thereby training the brain to modify the reflex adaptive responses, explains Smith. A number of afflictions, including lower back pain, oncologic pain resistant to drug treatment and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) among others, are addressed in through a series of treatment sessions. “The protocol is 10 sessions, some [patients] are completely free of pain before that, but I think it averages out to 7-8 consecutive treatments,” says Smith. “Booster cycles” of treatments are standard. The average pain free period, while varying ranges from at least three months to one year.
A Bright Future
Former Boston Bruin and Hartford Whaler Bill Bennett, for example, was a chronic pain sufferer stemming from a career-ending leg/ankle injury more than 30 years ago where he almost lost his entire leg. Willing to try anything for relief, the Rhode Island native sought out Calmar on the advice of one of his brothers, and, after being treated by Dr. D'Amato, was able to take to the ice comfortably for the first time in decades. Smith says that in the short time since their opening, the practice has treated more than 150 patients. While more commonly applied in Europe, more U.S.-based medical centers, including the Massey Cancer Center in Richmond, Virginia; Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the Carbone Cancer Center in Madison, Wisconsin; and the University of Miami Pain Management Center are using the same pain therapy treatment device as Calmar. In November 2010, Calmar Pain Relief was awarded a competitive federal grant under the Therapeutic Discovery Project program, and looking forward, plans to open an additional 10 clinics nationwide.
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