Looking for a Jump Start

The 1980s were the glory years for the electromedical industry, leading manufacturers say. It was a decade when the market for electromedical products soared to its peak, and a time when the practice of chiropractics was hip and trendy, “almost a status thing,” says Kevin Doyle, purchasing manager for Amrex. “Chiropractors were traveling with rock stars,” he says.

But while some electromedical manufacturers say the industry hit its prime in the 1980s, most say they are content to operate in the afterglow of that heyday. Industry leaders describe today’s market as stable, healthy and growing — albeit conservatively.

“[I anticipate] considerable growth for the next five to six years straight,” says Thomas Rodenberg, national sales manager for Parker Laboratories.

From Trendy to Mainstream

No longer simply a chic trend, “electromedical therapy has evolved into a significant therapy in modern medicine,” says Julie Schneider, director of marketing for Med Direct.

According to the experts, developments in electromedical device technology aided this evolution. For centuries — since a time when even electric eels were used in muscle stimulation — electricity has been used to treat medical patients, Doyle says.

Although therapists and electromedical device manufacturers no longer rely on electric-eel therapy, still “there is not much you can change about electric shock,” Doyle says.

“You don’t see huge, bright, new earth-shattering developments in our business, because a large portion of treatment is done with the hands,” he says. “Our equipment is an add-on to that.”

Still, new technology has made electromedical products easier to use, says Gary Smith, president of Medical Science Products. This “user-friendliness” is facilitated in part by the advent of digital technology.

“More [electromedical] products are digital instead of analog,” says Robert Armstrong, president of Newwave Medical. “Everything has moved in that direction.”

“We went digital because we were responding to a generation that was going digital,” says Hans Reiss, vice president of BioMedical Life Systems. “We knew we had to do it.”

This transition “opened up the door,” to opportunities to upgrade the devices, Reiss says. “It allowed us to use computer chips to add more features. It allowed the end user to use the device more easily.”

“It’s not all about TENS [transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulators] any longer,” Armstrong says. In fact, Armstrong says traditional electromedical applications, such as TENS devices, make up “maybe half” of this market. The future of the market, he says, lies in newer, reusable products, such as easy-application garments — back supports, socks and sleeves with electrodes in them.

Emphasis on Stress

Product upgrades have allowed electromedical manufacturing to expand into areas such as occupational therapy, speech and language pathology, and stress management, experts say.

“The country is stressed out,” says Daniel Kirsch, chairman and founder of Electromedical Products International. Electromedical products work well for stress management applications — including treating anxiety, depression and insomnia. As a result, business has increased in the United States, especially in the last year, Kirsch says.

As criticism of anti-depressant drugs mounts, therapists and patients are moving away from the drug model of stress management. This, in turn, is feeding “a tremendous amount of technological research [into electromedical therapy],” Kirsch says. “Stress has been good for us.”

Newwave’s Armstrong agrees, and points to the potential for market growth as more patients seek alternatives to drug therapy. “Patients need a non-invasive, non-narcotic alternative [to prescription drugs],” he says. “I still see a huge market out there.”

Growing, Slowing — or Gone?

Armstrong’s vision represents the opinion of only a portion of industry experts, however. Ed Dunlay, vice president of marketing for Chattanooga Group, happens to agree with Armstrong. The market is growing as “individual professions continue to research and adopt electromedical therapy,” Dunlay says.

Jack Guldalian, president of NeuMed, says market growth is conservative, especially given the lukewarm reimbursement climate for electromedical products.

“Dealers are responding to new, innovative products, but they don’t respond quickly,” he says, “They worry about reimbursement.”

Reimbursement presents an “unfortunate” situation in this industry, according to Guldalian. Dealers are hesitant to provide a product that might not be reimbursable.

“In the beginning, when you first introduce a product, it’s slow,” he says. “But once confidence is built and [dealers] realize [the product] can be reimbursed, there’s a sharp rise [in sales].”

Most manufacturers say electromedical products are being reimbursed, and see this response as a positive sign from Washington that electromedical therapy is being accepted as “a more traditional, standard way of treating pain,” Schneider says.

There has been a ground swell of support for these products,” she continues. “There is more awareness of this as alternative pain management.”

However, Smith warns, “It’s impossible to predict how the climate of Washington will change.”

And, some experts say, the real issue in the market has moved from Washington to overseas.

Asian imports — which generally are cheaper than their North American counterparts — are the real challenge in this market, according to some leading manufacturers. “[The manufacturers of] cheap imports sell to everybody and anybody through mail order,” Armstrong says. “Insurance companies try to take advantage of a low-cost product that’s just drop-shipped to patients, and this equals more competition for the dealer.”

Not only are these imports cheaper, they sometimes are substandard, manufacturers say. “The quality is just not there,” Rodenberg says. “The challenge is explaining that those products are going to break down and explaining the long-term value and quality of my product.”

The electromedical market in Europe, on the other hand, has much to teach North American manufacturers. In Europe, electromedical therapy products — such as stimulating electrodes for facial, body and sports toning — are available over-the-counter. “More and more [Europeans] are using stimulation there than ever before,” Whalen says.

However, she says, American society is too “litigious” to see the kind of growth in the electromedical market that the European market has seen,

“[Electromedical therapy] is like sticking your finger in a light socket if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Whalen says. “People hurt themselves. It requires knowledge to teach people to use these machines.”

Holding On

According to Doyle, the best way to survive in the electromedical market — for manufacturers, at least — is to “hold on, invest wisely, and continue to produce a higher quality product for a lower price. This is not a glamorous market. You just chug along and survive, and try to respond to what people want.”

The same advice holds true for providers of electromedical products.

“You just have to be in there with the right products,” Guldalian says. “If you’re in it with a bunch of ‘me, too’s’ — the same old thing — it’s difficult,” he says.

“If you have the right products, people will respond.”

Experts Interviewed:

Robert Armstrong, president, Newwave Medical, Plano, Texas; Kevin Doyle, purchasing manager, Amrex, Carson, Calif.; Ed Dunlay, vice president of marketing, Chattanooga Group, Hixson, Tenn.; Jack Guldalian, president, NeuMed, Pennington, N.J.; Daniel Kirsch, chairman and founder, Electromedical Products International, Mineral Wells, Texas; Hans Reiss, vice president, BioMedical Life Systems, Vista, Calif.; Thomas Rodenberg, national sales manager, Parker Laboratories, Fairfield, N.J.; Julie Schneider, director of marketing, Med Direct, Irvine, Calif.; Gary Smith, president, Medical Science Products, of Canal Fulton, Ohio; and Rhonda Whalen, advertising director, Uni-Patch, a division of Tyco Healthcare, Wabasha, Minn.