Winnona Partners worked closely with retired neurosurgeon William Robert Hudgins, M.D. to create the LOBAK – Back Pain Diagnosis app for iOS and Android devices. If you’re suffering from back or leg pain and want a medically accurate diagnosis, LOBAK is the app for you.
Note: The LOBAK App was discontinued in 2021 .
Dr. Hudgins is a Board Certified neurosurgeon with over 40 years experience, now retired from practice.In 1970 Dr. Hudgins published results of his two-year clinical evaluation of several hundred patients hospitalized with low back pain and he then introduced the use of calculating the predictive value (PV) from 10-90%, of myelography in diagnosing a disc protrusion in the lower back.
The development of imaging scans and personal computing allowed him to upgrade that study to a computer program that included CT and MRI scans and could do the math calculations automatically. This program, called LOBAK, was accepted for presentation at a Symposium on Artificial Intelligence at the National Computer Conference in 1981. The Winnona Partners team is honored to have collaborated with Dr. Hudgins to help automate a lifetime of professional expertise in diagnosing lower back and leg pain.
LOBAK uses a unique classification system created by neurosurgeon Hudgins to tell you the odds that you have a lumbar disk protrusion (ruptured, herniated or extruded disk or disc, also called a herniated nucleus pulposus or HNP) and and if you haven’t already had an imaging study (CT, MRI, or Myelogram), whether you need an imaging study (CT, MRI or myelogram).
Based on your responses, LOBAK then computes the predictive value of a positive or negative test result, in percent, of a disk protrusion, using Bayes’ theorem of conditional probability. The app then uses decision analysis to tell you if you should consider having surgery.
LOBAK can also warn you when it’s urgent to see your doctor. It can detect many other causes of back pain, from simple lumbar sprain, to spinal tumor or fracture, spinal stenosis causing difficulty walking, infection, arthritis, and spondylolisthesis. You can download the app on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store today, or visit the LOBAK website for more information.
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