Lindsay’s Quest

More than a few Augment Therapy team members have musical backgrounds, and this should come as no surprise. Music is a major motivator within Augment Therapy and, beyond that, musical training has positively shaped the minds that make the software better every day.

Musical ability starts at the executive level with Steve Blake, Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Augment Therapy. Music powers Steve’s learning process, and so it has served as the galvanizing force behind everything he’s done professionally. This began in college, when Steve came into contact with Dr. Hugo Norden, a composer who was at the conclusion of his career. Dr. Norden took Steve into his private tutelage and instructed him in the intricacies of fugue, canon, and counterpoint. With these principles of composition in place, Steve began to apply them in other contexts, such as audio design and then computer programming, both of which he was able to teach himself based on what he’d learned from music. Even when he’s away from work, music is an essential component of Steve’s leisure life, as he’s dedicated himself to the keyboard, guitar, and French horn. Steve played horn for four seasons as a part of the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra in New Hampshire. He even wrote a piece for this ensemble, titled “Prelude to Joy”, which he describes as the biggest musical moment in his life.

Ontario Britton, Senior Developer, has gained a wealth of musical experience from school, church, and community groups. From elementary school onward, he’s played low brass, with an emphasis on the tuba. In high school, he took up piano and guitar. All the while, he’s been singing bass and tenor. He loves classical genres on account of the opportunities for meditation and expression they afford, though he’s also partial to blues, jazz, and funk.

For Matt Mathers, Developer and 3D Modeler, glam rock and hair metal have been abiding sources of inspiration and aspiration. As a child of the 80s, he dreamed of getting fame and fortune via the strains of an electric guitar. Matt made a point of hanging out with musicians throughout high school, and he eventually purchased a used drum set of his own. He met up with a guitarist and they started playing regularly. They tore up the Cleveland circuit for the better part of a decade until everyone, Matt included, wound up with a career and a family. At present, Matt still plays drums for a metal band by the name of Grane.

For Lisa Blake, our Director of Product, music has been a persistent passion. Most of Lisa’s musical efforts have gone into singing, as she participated in her school’s madrigal and jazz choirs, as well as the yearly musicals. During the pandemic, she had the opportunity to resume jazz piano lessons with her teacher from her youth. Thanks to the magic of Zoom, they’ve been able to keep up weekly lessons for the past eighteen months, even though they now live about 3,000 miles apart. What draws Lisa to music is the intensive concentration it requires. And she loves how, with practice, one’s musical skills will always improve—and yet, there will still be an infinite amount of things waiting to be learned.

And naturally, the most seasoned of Augment Therapy’s musicians is our Music Director, David Grimes. David studied jazz and popular music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating with a B.M. in Composition. In his graduate training at the University of Toronto, he focused on classical and electronic music, earning a Masters in Composition. David went on to teach at Northeastern University and eventually made his way back to Berklee in an instructor role. Meanwhile, he was a founding member of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble and also hosted a radio program on contemporary music for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation called Two New Hours. His piece “Ecce Lignum Crucis,” a setting of the Easter liturgy for voices, orchestra, and electronics, won “Best Broadcast of Canadian Music.” Now, working with Augment Therapy, he has set out to design music that gives users an immersive and affirmative therapy experience.

What we have, then, with Augment Therapy is a group of intensely creative people collaborating upon a symphony, of sorts, bringing together their talents like so many instruments in an orchestra. And in concert, they are helping to orchestrate CEO Lindsay Watson’s singular vision . . . which might just prove to be a masterwork.For Lindsay Watson, founding Augment Therapy feels like destiny.

Lindsay is the daughter of a tech entrepreneur. Tech, though, was not the immediate focus of her educational pursuits. From a young age, Lindsay gravitated toward healthcare, especially medicine, as she was driven to help people. She considered medical school, but had some trepidations about the demands of the physician’s life, as she wanted to have a life outside her career. In physical therapy, Lindsay found she could get the best of both worlds, being able to help people while still having a rich family life of her own.

With these aims in place, Lindsay earned a BA in psychology and physical therapy at Ohio University. She then went on to attain a Master’s in physical therapy at Andrews University. She’s been practicing as a physical therapist for two decades, with a special emphasis on pediatric care for 17 years. During that time, she and her husband have had two sons and a daughter and have made a happy life in Cleveland.

While her family life flourished, Lindsay’s professional life left something to be desired. She was, in her own self-assessment, a “good” therapist, but she had never thought of herself as the most skilled therapist. While most physical therapists focus on certifications and techniques, Lindsay emphasized connection with patients and efficacy of practice. She was chiefly concerned with patients’ experience of care. At times, this experience struck her as tremendously lacking.

One occasion stands out. Between appointments while working in an outpatient setting, Lindsay stepped out of her office and into the waiting room. Here she spent several long minutes watching the families of children in physical therapy. The families looked worn-down and haggard. They had expended all their resources just to be there, and they usually brought along at least one restless extra sibling. While Lindsay felt intense compassion for these families, she also felt a measure of guilt. At the end of the ensuing therapy session, she was going to assign them homework. And most likely, the family would feel guilty if they couldn’t complete the homework. Indeed, research shows that 65% of home exercises assigned by physical therapists are not completed. In this way, Lindsay felt complicit in these families’ hardships.

This tangle of emotions swirled up into a distinct feeling that nagged at Lindsay time and time again. If I could multiply myself, she often thought, I could help this family and child better.

But how could she “multiply” herself? The answer, it turned out, was in her DNA, or so it seemed. It was in the memory of her late father.

The answer was tech.

Running on what she describes as a “fire in the gut”, Lindsay did extensive research into technological innovations that could enhance physical therapy.

Lindsay’s research took her down three paths. One path was the gamification of health care—that is, turning physical therapy into a game. Another was telehealth, long-distance healthcare by telecommunication. The third was remote monitoring, the science of supervising and controlling software from afar. Via a series of “light-bulb moments,” Lindsay put the three approaches together, recognizing that these technologies in combination could hold the secret to improving the experience of physical therapy and enabling access to it.

She promptly started a company with the idea that she’d synthesize gaming, telehealth, and remote monitoring for the advancement of physical therapy. She advocated doggedly for this combination, to such an extent that she felt like the “crazy-lady” touting this trifecta of technologies. At first, she had difficulties finding a sympathetic ear. Physical therapy has something of a technophobic streak due to its intensive focus on procedures carried out by hand.

Then came the ultimate light-bulb moment. Lindsay found a medium capable of bringing these three elements together. That medium is augmented reality, or AR, the interactive experience of a real-world environment. What if children could do their exercises in a virtual world depicted on a TV screen in the comfort of their family home?

Lindsay knew she had the solution for improving PT, but now she needed someone with the tech know-how to implement her vision. Through a college friend, she chanced upon meeting Steve Blake, a veteran programmer based in New Hampshire. Steve checked every box: he’d worked with VR and AR and, perhaps most importantly, he’d already designed software that was made for kids first. Steve saw Lindsay’s idea as eminently doable, and, with a passion matching hers, made it a reality.

Together, Steve and Lindsay worked toward the first prototype for Augment Therapy. Through the magic of Augmented Reality, Augment Therapy transports its user to a lush, interactive world brimming with games, exercises, and explorations, all designed with the goal of motivating kids to complete their therapy requirements. Augment Therapy is a game for the patient, but for the therapist, it’s a powerful problem-solving tool. Soon enough, Steve had an early prototype in place, and Lindsay looked to share her brainchild with the world.

Then adversity struck.

Lindsay’s daughter, Piper, became afflicted with sudden and unexplained leg pain. The doctors diagnosed Piper with septic arthritis, and emergency surgery was required. Piper faced the surgery bravely, but in the aftermath, she needed physical therapy.

Therapy was hard for Piper. She was deeply fearful, and refused to do her exercises. She often cried through her sessions. The experience was just as agonizing for Lindsay. She had been transformed from therapist to the parent of a child in therapy, and she was living the parents’ experience from the inside. As a parent, Lindsay felt her child’s pain. Seeing her daughter struggling in therapy confirmed every concern she’d felt on that day when she looked out into that waiting room between appointments and bore witness to the hardships of her patients and their families.

But Piper’s experience also catalyzed Lindsay’s drive to make Augment Therapy work. Lindsay had been passionate before, yes, but now she became nothing less than obsessed.

Piper, as it turned out, became the inaugural Augment Therapy test patient. Using an early version of the software, Piper was the first player of Augment Therapy’s games, and the first explorer of its vast, virtual landscapes. Piper took to the program with glee, zestfully engaging in the very same exercises she’d been refusing to do just days before.

Witnessing this, Lindsay was exultant as both a mom and an entrepreneur. What had started as a “fire in the gut” became, in her words, a “nuclear explosion of purpose.” She’d felt the nagging call before, but now she was ready to dedicate her life to getting Augment Therapy out into the world, so that kids, parents, and therapists could experience all the same benefits that she had.

Augment Therapy succeeds because it is created not only by a therapist, but by the parent of a child in therapy. Lindsay has seen the positive effects of her brainchild for her own child. All told, she comprehensively understands the hopes, fears, and difficulties faced by parents with kids in PT from both sides, because she has seen both sides, professionally and personally. These are the difficulties she seeks to allay by continually striving to make Augment Therapy more effective and more accessible.