Physical Medicine— FDA advisory panel PM

Physical medicine is the rehabilitation and daily-living panel: TENS and powered muscle stimulators, therapeutic massagers and heating devices, wheelchairs (manual and powered), mobility aids, patient-handling equipment, exercise and rehabilitation systems, and components of limb prosthetics and orthotics. It has one of the strongest consumer-market overlaps of any panel — a large share of its cleared devices are sold directly to the public.

That consumer overlap is exactly why the panel's data is worth checking: "FDA cleared" appears constantly in wellness-device marketing, and this is the register where such claims can be verified against what was actually cleared and for what indication. The gap between a cleared indication (say, temporary relief of pain) and a marketing claim is often the entire story. Powered exoskeletons and robotic rehabilitation systems are the panel's most technically interesting recent additions.