Torture drove Neal Taslitz to the floor, putting him flat on his back. Then he got up off the floor and into a new business.
As a lawyer putting in 12-hour workdays, most of which were spent wrenched over his desk in a stiff wingback chair, Taslitz had been forced into the daily floor ritual.
About midafternoon, he would pull himself out of that unforgiving chair, close his office door and lie flat on the floor for about 20 minutes, all in an effort to relieve excruciating low back pain that progressed to the neck.
When he went home at night, he would take medication to relax his muscles and hang upside down from a chinup bar to try to stretch the hurt away.
”I felt like the bottom of my back was tied up in knots,” Taslitz said. His doctor talked about surgery. But first, he advised Taslitz to trade in his office chair and his concrete-firm mattress for ones that offered better lumbar, or low back, support.
”I was so shocked,” Taslitz said, noting his amazement when the pain eased after making those changes in his home and office furniture.
”I was so excited; I was like a little kid. No one could take away my chair. I would kill for it.”
That was almost seven years ago. Today Taslitz has a healthy back, and though he still practices law for select clients, his main endeavor is a new business called BackCare Corp., a retail furniture store that specializes in chairs and sleep systems for people with bad backs.
And there are a lot of them.
Various research papers that appeared recently in the medical journal Spine said that four out of five people will suffer low back pain at some point. Every day 7 million Americans are treated for low back pain, and as many as 8 million adults are partially or permanently disabled each year because of chronic low back pain.
The idea of opening a furniture store dedicated to sufferers of back pain was inspired by Taslitz`s own search for therapeutic furniture, he said. The long, tedious search took him through umpteen showrooms at the Merchandise Mart and to High Point, N.C., the heart of the domestic furniture industry, before he found a chair and a mattress that gave him the proper support.
”I became more involved in it,” said Taslitz, who later quit his job at the law firm and joined his family`s furniture business at the Merchandise Mart. ”I researched it because I thought there was a real need for these kinds of products. No one in the retail furniture industry was addressing these kinds of concerns the way I thought they should be.”
Recognizing a void in the marketplace, Taslitz assembled a small gallery of back-supporting chairs and sleep systems and installed it in his family`s designer showroom at the Mart. When the family retired from the furniture business last year, Taslitz decided to expand his line of back-supporting seating and sleep systems, move it out of the Mart and take it retail under the name BackCare Corp.
The store operates on the fifth floor of the office building at 310 S. Peoria St. Most customers are referred there by their doctors, physical therapists or occupational therapists, and many come with a prescription for a particular chair or sleep system. Members of the health-care community and their patients are given a discount on select products.
”Our mission is to make the members of the medical community who aren`t aware, aware of the wide range of choices (of furniture) available to them now that will be useful for them and for their patients,” said Cari Groman, Taslitz`s cousin and new business partner.
The no-frills store gets right to the point, with sleep systems lined up in a row and chairs equally unglorified in their display. The point is to make it easy for people to compare one chair to the next and one bed to the next with minimal clutter in between.
Hanging prominently on the wall right past the front door is a sign defining the word ”ergonomics,” according to the pages of World Book Dictionary.
Simplifying the technical jargon, ergonomics is a scientific discipline that relates principles of engineering to the health, comfort and efficiency of workers in the workplace. The term ”ergonomic” is used to label products whose design supports the human body in doing a particular work task.
For instance, a chair designed to provide the proper support to someone who leans forward over a desk all day is ergonomic. Keyboards that tilt to lessen the strain on a computer operator`s wrists are ergonomic. A camera that has a side grip with slots for fingers to give photographers a better handle is ergonomic.
That single word, ergonomic, is what the store is all about, according to Taslitz and Groman.
The store shows about seven lines, about 15 models total, of ergonomic chairs. Most are intended for office or home-office use, though there is one recliner that would look and sit quite well in a contemporary-styled living or family room. Prices on the chairs vary depending on the model and the type of upholstery, but generally they run from $300 to $900. Leather chairs can cost $900 to $2,000.
Also shown are four lines of sleep systems (known as mattresses in simpler times) and one type of foundation system for them. Though, by strict definition, the term ”ergonomic” cannot be applied to the sleep systems because they aren`t used in a work environment, the same principles of carefully designed support apply. A queen-size mattress costs about $250 to $650.
Adjustability is the key feature on all of the chairs. Depending on the model and style, any of several features, including seat height, seat tilt, seat depth, armrest height, backrest height and back tilt, can be adjusted to provide custom support for different people doing different tasks.
The Ergomax chair is one of the highlights. Besides the usual adjustability available on most of the chairs in the store, this chair also has a contoured swivel cushion that supports either the back or the chest, depending where the user chooses to position the cushion. The frontal support made possible by this cushion is considered a breakthrough in seating design. It is especially beneficial for people who flex forward to work, such as dentists. The chair also has a contoured swivel cushion to support the legs or feet.
Another chair, the Synchrono, has adjustable lumbar support. By turning a knob, the user can adjust the backrest for a snug fit that offers maximum support.
Taslitz and Groman ask customers a series of questions to determine what they are looking for, how long they spend seated in their chair and what type of tasks they perform in it. The types of tasks play a big role in determining the kind of support needed from a chair.
For instance, an executive who is on the phone a lot would benefit from a chair whose back could be made to flex backward, so he could stretch out while seated. An architect or graphic artist who works hunched over a desk, on the other hand, would benefit from a chair that either promotes a forward position or provides frontal support.
”We don`t pretend to practice medicine,” Taslitz said, noting that they don`t recommend one product over another to customers but do provide information to health-care professionals on the possible therapeutic benefits, ergonomic advantages and usage recommendations for each chair.
Kevin Cronin is one physical therapist who has referred patients to BackCare.
”The thing that makes them unique is that there is no company that exists right now that strictly exists for selling just furniture and sleep systems that are made for people with low back problems,” said Cronin, whose practice in Chicago is called Certified Physical Therapy Services Ltd.
Cronin said he investigated BackCare products before referring patients. He bought himself an air bed and keeps an Ergomax in his clinic for patients to try.
”I tell my patients, you may exercise one hour a day, but if you lift incorrectly, slouch all day in your chair and sleep on a sagging mattress, you are going to continue to have problems,” he said.
”The concept (of a back store) is desperately needed,” said Russ Hollander, an occupational therapist and the director of the physical medicine and rehabilitation department of the Chicago Neurosurgical Center at Columbus Hospital.
But Hollander believes that people should not be disillusioned to think a certain chair or sleep system will end all of their back problems.
”Anyone who has had a problem, (the `right` furniture) is one piece of their preventive maintenance program,” he said, stressing the word ”one.”
Maintaining a healthy back ”means posture. It means strength. It means exercise. It means flexibility. It means work,” he continued.
”When you think you sit in your office 8 to 10 hours a day, that`s a long time to be sitting in the wrong position with the wrong support,” Groman said.
Ergonomic furniture ”is not a cure-all,” she concluded. ”But in many cases it may provide significant relief.”
BackCare makes appointments by phone at 312-226-2686. In addition to selling furniture to individual buyers, Taslitz and Groman offer a leasing program to corporate clients.
