Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

One of the most humbling truths in medicine is that learning does not only flow one way #Medicine

23 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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1:01

This short YouTube monologue by Aaron Hartman, MD recounts a pediatric clinical anecdote: a child with marked leg tone (hypertonia) had multiple invasive surgical options recommended (including heel-cord release, gastrocnemius lengthening, Baclofen pump, and selective dorsal rhizotomy). During the pandemic Dr. Hartman learned of a portable neuromuscular stimulation device called Revive; after about six months of use the patient's lower-extremity tone largely resolved, and the improvement has persisted and progressed over approximately five years. Hartman emphasizes that patients sometimes discover useful therapies outside traditional specialist awareness and that noninvasive options can change long-term trajectories.

Questions this video answers

About six months of use.

Approximately five years (improvement noted five years ago and continued progress since).

Chapters

As kids have really bad tone issues, their legs are tight. And so one of the surgeries earlier on that was recommended. She had three surgeries recommended. One was to cut her heel cords, other was to cut her gastrocs. One was to act well for one was to put a Baclofen pump in her back. The other one was to actually do a thing called selective dorsal rhizotomy, where they cut nerves in your back, all to help tone. Any one of those would have resulted in a trajectory that would never. You never come back from a patient. During the pandemic, while I was doing the online course community, thing brought to attention a device called Revive, which is a muscular neuromuscular stimulation device. Put your feet on it, activates your nerves. I was looking for this device for years. I'm like, oh, my gosh, that is exactly what I'm looking for. And after using that device for six months, almost all the tone in her lower extremities is gone. And so. And that was five, six years ago. So it's five years ago. So the thing about it is, like, there's so many things out there that even patients will find that the specialists don't know about. And she's continues to progress, continues to get better year after year, and I'm excited to see what she looks like when she's 25. If she keeps on going this way, it's going to be amazing.