I saw many patients in my hospital that complained of low back pain, neck pain, or radiating pain and were continuously being treated by conservative methods of treatment such as physical therapy, medication, and so forth, yet they repetitively went into remission and often the situation was exacerbated. Therefore, I began to think of way in which I could free them from the pain..
There are several methods of conservative treatment: bed rest, heat treatment, electric therapy, chiropractic manipulation, and traction. Traction, if appropriate, is the most widely used method for the treatment of minor cases because of its ability to reduce a protruding disc. Orthopedic traction and maintaining proper posture are the two most important treatments among the conservative physical therapies. The other forms of conservative treatment are used for symptomatic treatments. Over ninety percent of the time, patients who suffer from a slipped (herniated) disc can be treated by some form of conservative treatment.

The other form of treatment is surgery. Patients who require surgery (below 10%) most often have a ruptured or hard disc, or a compressed spinal cord. For these types of cases, surgery is more suitable than conservative treatment.

I began to think of various methods to stretch the spine such as by using springs, syringes, an air cylinder, magnets, and bellows. Finally, I came up with the idea that led to the development of AIRTRACK, circularly layered inflatable, and expandable tubes. I wanted to design a product that would allow slipped discs to be conveniently cured with no concern to the patient about time or place.
As I refined and clinically tested the AIRTRACK I found that they were more efficient than I had expected. Many patients who had strained as well as slipped discs immediately remarked that their pain had subsided. Furthermore, they were able to recover their range of motion after only a few seconds of use, and were able to move without difficulty and freely enjoy their daily lives.

There are seldom treatments to eliminate pain and perform causal treatment with immediate effect. In this case, I could hardly think of elimination of pain except anesthetics, or reduction from dislocation.

Dr. MD. Park. Orthopedic. Medical Science Institute.

MRI Research

Effects of the ambulatory Cervical Traction apparatus in disc patients with MRI research.
Dr., Park, MD. & President. Radiology Dept. of Univ. Severance Hosp., Rehabilitation Dept. Univ. Airtrac Medical Science Institute (MSI)
Purpose: Our purpose is to describe the reduction effect of herniated disc by using the ambulatory aerodynamic traction apparatus, named 'AIRTRAC', with MRI imaging.
Materials and Methods: We compared the MRI image (1.5 T, Vision, Siemens) of the pre-traction and during-traction by nonmagnetic aerodynamic traction apparatus, named 'AIRTRAC', of 6 normal people, 12 herniated disc patients and 2 patients with degenerative disc change. We compared the changes of the height of C1 to C7, reduction of herniated-disc, intervertebral foramina with the Tühigh signal intensity of sagital and crossectional view of supine pre-traction and during-traction treatment. The time interval between 2 images was a few minutes. During- traction image was obtained just after traction treatment.
Results: All the cervical spines of the normal 6 people was elongated to 1.5 to 4.5 cm during traction. The traction effect of cervical elongation of 8 of the 12 cervical herniated disc patients was observed to 1 mm to 9 mm. Herniated disc of 1 patient was reduced completely, 4 patients showed considerable reduction, mild reduction in 3 patients and no change in 4 patients with severe degenerative change. The traction effect of elongation was observed in 1 degenerative disc patient and no change in the other 1 patient. The clinical symptoms disappeared immediately in 2 cases among these 14 patients.
Conclusion: The traction effect of the ambulatory air-traction apparatus was observed on MRI in the 9 cervical disc disease patients (64%) among 14. Especially, disc reduction effect by traction treatment confirmed in 8 herniated disc patients (66%) among 12.