A holding company for Revita Rehab LLC, a Spokane-based rehabilitative services provider that specializes in a proprietary treatment method for back, neck, and shoulder pain, has bought the assets of a Spokane Valley clinic, Progressive Physical Therapy Inc.

Financial terms of the transaction that was completed about a month ago weren't disclosed.

Steve Neff, a principal with Revita Holdings, which owns Revita Rehab, says the acquisition will mean that five Progressive employees, including principal and physical therapist Kimberlee Hammond, will move in early September to Revita Rehab's Valley clinic, located at 1421 N. Mullan. Hammond specializes in rehabilitating injured employees so they can return to work.

"It's a very nice complement to what we do," Neff says. "We'll be able to offer full physical therapy services using our patented equipment and using her physical therapy expertise in industrial rehabilitation. That might be a model for future clinics."

Neff adds, "We can add our modalities to get people back to work quicker."

Neff says the addition of the Progressive Physical Therapy employees will double the staff at Revita's Valley clinic, which will be remodeled this month to triple the amount of leased space it occupies within a retail strip. Revita also has a second clinic with about five employees on Spokane's North Side, inside of North Spokane Physical & Sports Therapy & Aquatics, at 203 E. Dalke.

Neff says the Revita Rehab Valley clinic will expand from 2,000 square feet to nearly 6,000 square feet after the renovation. He says the company doesn't yet have bids on the renovation project cost, but it's expected to be minor and absorbed by both Revita and the owner of the building.

"We're expanding into two additional bays, knocking out walls," Neff says. "Our clinic is in one of the bays, and we're right in the middle, so we need to remodel the entire location, and we'll have to change the entrance."

He says Progressive Physical Therapy will vacate its office at 11915 E. Broadway with the move, but it will continue to use the same Progressive name for about six months to a year, after which it will switch to the Revita Rehab name.

The Progressive Physical Therapy acquisition comes only about three months after Revita moved out of an incubator site at Innovate Washington's headquarters, at 665 N. Riverpoint Blvd., where it had been for just over two years.

"We're definitely looking to expand in the greater Spokane-Coeur d'Alene market," Neff adds. "We're also looking at opening clinics in other states."

Revita Rehab uses patented equipment and protocols developed by Sandpoint, Idaho-based Pneumex Inc. Revita Holdings has an exclusive licensing agreement with Pneumex for all of Washington and Oregon, as well as for Kootenai County.

The techniques and equipment developed and sold by Pneumex combine traction, vibration, and a rehabilitation technique called unweighting, which is intended to minimize the pull of gravity on a person, in order to treat chronic pain.

As reported earlier in the Journal, a clinical study is being overseen by Providence Health Care chief executive Michael Wilson and lead investigator Dr. Dean Martz, a principal at Inland Neurosurgical & Spine Associates PS, of Spokane, to determine whether Pneumex's therapy protocol could reduce the need for or the number of surgical interventions to treat lower back pain. The study that started in 2011 also will investigate the effectiveness of the related treatment method used by Revita Rehab.

Neff and co-founder Paul Brown established Revita Holdings in January 2010.