ABOUT
Built for the spine. Backed by science.
BackMinder started with a simple question: why do we track heart rate, sleep, and steps — but not the structure that holds us upright?
OUR MISSION
Make spinal health measurable.
Spinal conditions are the leading cause of disability worldwide, yet most people have no objective data about their own alignment until something goes wrong. We believe that changes when continuous, clinical-grade telemetry becomes as accessible as a fitness tracker.
BackMinder exists to give every person — athlete, desk worker, patient, or clinician — a real-time window into their spinal health, so they can act before pain becomes injury and injury becomes chronic.
THE SCIENCE
How BackMinder works.
The sensor array combines three measurement modalities into a single wearable unit, processed by our on-device firmware and streamed to the cloud at 120Hz.
01
Inertial measurement
A 9-DOF IMU (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) captures real-time orientation and movement at 120Hz. Sensor fusion algorithms resolve absolute spinal angle with sub-degree accuracy.
02
Pressure mapping
Thin-film pressure sensors distributed across the lumbar pad detect load distribution and asymmetry. Uneven loading patterns are early indicators of compensatory posture and disc stress.
03
Muscle activity inference
Surface EMG electrodes at L3–L5 capture paraspinal muscle activation. Combined with IMU data, the system distinguishes active stabilization from passive collapse — a key marker of fatigue and injury risk.
04
BackMinder Alignment Score
The BAS algorithm synthesizes all three data streams into a single 0–100 score, updated every second. Weightings are derived from a clinical dataset of 4,200 subjects across five spinal conditions.
THE TEAM
Built by people who've been there.
Dr. Mara Solano
Co-founder & CEO
Former orthopedic spine surgeon with 14 years of clinical practice. Mara left surgery to build the diagnostic tools she wished existed for her patients.
James Okafor
Co-founder & CTO
Previously led embedded systems at a cardiac monitoring company. James designed the sensor fusion stack and holds three patents in wearable biometric hardware.
Dr. Priya Nair
Head of Clinical Research
PhD in biomechanics from MIT. Priya oversees the clinical validation program and the dataset that powers the BAS scoring algorithm.
Lena Brandt
Head of Product
10 years in health tech product design. Lena led the UX research program that shaped BackMinder's real-time feedback interface.