Can a ‘robotherapist’ deliver as good a massage as a human?

May 28, 2023

Backhug’s 26 mechanical fingers offer personalised joint care. How much can it do for me in six weeks?

Imagine having a live-in masseur available to pummel away at your aching back at the end of each day; one who never gets tired, or suggests that maybe it is time for you to return the favour.

Enter the Backhug: a robotic therapist equipped with 26 mechanical fingers to scan the unique curvature of your spine and press away stiffness in the joints of your back, neck and shoulders, with nothing more than a whirr and occasional squeak of complaint.

Backhug is the brainchild of Chongsu Lee, an engineer-turned-physiotherapist whose clinical experience convinced him that spine stiffness was a major contributor to many of his patients’ problems – from hip ache and tight calf muscles, to tiredness, headaches and pain in their hands and elbows.

Exhausted by the effort of repeatedly pressing his own thumbs into their back joints to relieve their pain, Lee did what many employees fantasise about, and designed a robotic clone to partly replace himself.

When I was invited to try one of these “robotherapists”, I jumped at the chance. Despite taking regular exercise, I suffer from many of the above complaints, and was intrigued to see what difference six weeks of daily massage could make.

Our backs, necks and shoulders contain more than 150 joints, and they are all connected. Lee likens them to a bicycle chain: Just as it will get rusty if left out in the rain, our back joints may become stiff if we spend too long sitting at our desks, experience stress or injury, or through ageing – making it harder to “pedal” our bodies. Moving these joints – whether through manual therapy or stretching and exercise – helps keep them lubricated.

Lee is keen to differentiate Backhug from the massage chairs you find in service stations and airports: “Massage chairs can give only a superficial muscle treatment, which may increase the blood flow, but the impact is very localised and short-lived,” he says. “Backhug treats the joints in the back.”

Finding space to accommodate my new companion is tricky: The size and shape of a coffee table, and at least twice the weight, it is difficult to move without help. My husband eyes it the way one might a romantic rival. “Is that thing here to replace me?” he says.

He need not worry: the massage the Backhug delivers is not the relaxing, sensuous kind, and I spend my first session worrying I will have bruises (I don’t). Afterwards, though, my back feels strangely alive, and I quickly begin to look forward to my daily 20- to 30-minute massage.

Another difference from most massage chairs is that the treatment is personalised, based on a chatbot consultation through Backhug’s smartphone app (also used to control the device). Its robotic fingers probe and adapt to your specific back shape, and measure the amount of resistance encountered during each session, meaning users can quantify the extent to which different sections of their backs have relaxed, and track this over time.

Not everyone agrees that this approach will be beneficial. Ash James, director of practice and development at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, says: “I’m not doubting for a second that you might use it and feel quite nice afterwards, but I think it is unlikely to affect any long-term changes in your mobility.

“Pain is so complex, that it’s rarely just about one thing. The stiffness in your joints might contribute somewhat, but so might the condition of your muscles, the fact you smoke or drink excess alcohol, don’t exercise enough, how socially isolated you are and whether you have any mental health problems or easy access to regular exercise. It is overly simplistic to think that one device will be the golden ticket that gets rid of back pain.”

Catherine Quinn, the president of the British Chiropractic Association, is more receptive to the idea. The link between stiff joints and tight muscles forms an important part of a chiropractor’s education and training – as does the idea that pain can radiate from one area to another. “There’s no doubt that the use of and effective impact of artificial intelligence is on the rise and the technology is developing rapidly. However, something like a robot lacks human touch and the ability to create rapport with a patient, which is crucial in healthcare,” Quinn says.

Costing £99 a month for a 12-month loan, or £4,150 for a lifetime subscription, BackHug is not cheap. But if effective, it might be cheaper than frequent visits to a private physiotherapist or osteopath.

As the weeks wear on, I gradually become accustomed to the intense pressure and stretching of a Backhug massage, and dial up the intensity. Whether it is because of the massage, or simply taking 20-30 minutes at the end of each day to relax, is difficult to say, but I begin to feel more energetic in the evenings.

However, when I look at my data, the difference in joint stiffness detected between the start and end of each session shows little improvement over time: basically, each massage prompts a major reduction in tension in my upper, mid and lower back, but these areas do not seem to becoming any more supple over time. Perhaps if I stuck with it for longer they would. “Probably the amount of tension and stiffness has been building up over the last 10 or 20 years, and so we don’t expect miracles to happen within weeks,” says Lee.

Even so, after six weeks, I complete a follow-up consultation and realise that the headaches and pins and needles in my fingers that I reported at the start of the trial have largely disappeared. The tightness between my shoulders also feels less severe. My husband is another convert; the other night I had to fight him for access to the machine.

Is it likely to be a straightforward fix for someone with more serious back or muscle issues? I doubt it – and we will probably need human therapists for many years to come. But as a means of relieving daily stress and tension, it feels great, and it is certainly healthier than reaching for a glass of wine.