Revita Rehab LLC, a Spokane-based rehabilitative services provider that specializes in a proprietary treatment method for back, neck, and shoulder pain, is moving from its current location in the University District and expanding into two Spokane-area locations.

Steve Neff, a principal with Revita Holdings, which owns Revita Rehab, says the business has been located in an incubator site at Innovate Washington's headquarters, at 665 N. Riverpoint Blvd., for just over two years. The business's operations there will close at the end of the day on March 31, reopening at the two new offices—one in Spokane Valley and the other on Spokane's North Side—on April 1.

The Revita Rehab clinic in Spokane Valley is to be located in a medical office suite at 1421 N. Mullan. Neff says that clinic will be co-owned and managed by chiropractor Steven Borders and physical therapist Donnelle Odren. Revita Holdings also will have ownership interest in that clinic, he says.

Revita Rehab's North Side clinic will operate out of North Spokane Physical & Sports Therapy & Aquatics, located at 203 E. Dalke, near Providence Holy Family Hospital.

Neff says that physical therapy clinic is owned by Craig and Jamie Peterson, of Spokane, who have ownership interests in three other physical therapy clinics here, as well as ownership interest in Revita Holdings. Craig Peterson is a licensed physical therapist who has been practicing in that field for 20 years, says Neff.

He says Revita Rehab likely will employ between four and five people at each of the new clinics, in addition to the clinics' co-owners and managers. The U-District clinic currently employs eight people, including Revita's co-owners and -founders, Neff and Paul Brown.

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 combines 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.

About a year ago, Revita began a clinical study of Pneumex's alternative therapy methods, Neff says.

That study is being overseen by Providence Health Care interim chief executive Michael Wilson and lead investigator Dr. Dean Martz, a principal at Inland Neurosurgical & Spine Associates PS, of Spokane. The intent of the study is to determine whether Pneumex's therapy protocol could potentially reduce the need for or the number of surgical interventions to treat lower back pain.

Neff says the study is ongoing, and he adds that Revita has faced some challenges in being able to recruit enough patients who are willing to participate. He says the study's investigators will continue to observe patients at Revita's two new locations.

Participants eligible to take part in the clinical study must be between the ages of 25 and 65 who suffer from lower back pain but don't need a walker or another device to stand or walk. Candidates must not have undergone back surgery yet and are required to have had a magnetic resonance imaging test with in the past six months.

Revita currently performs between 50 and 60 treatments a week on both its existing patients and study participants, Neff says.

Neff says the ultimate goal for Revita is to open clinics across the region, as well as nationally.

"It never was started with the idea that there was going to be just one, and this is the beginning of that," he says.

Neff and Brown established Revita Holdings in January 2010.