by Christine Graf

A large-scale study conducted in Japan showed that increased work from home has led to an increase in lower back pain, and Google searches for the words “back pain” reached an all-time high in January 2022. Poor ergonomics in the home office are thought to be partially to blame for the worldwide surge in back pain.

Since the start of the pandemic, chiropractor Dr. Brad Elliott, owner of Elliott Chiropractic in Clifton Park, has seen an uptick in the number of patients seeking care for back, neck, and shoulder pain.

“Home workstations have kept providers like me busy,” he said. “There’s been a lot of overuse injury from working from home without a doubt. I’ve seen a lot of neck, shoulder, and upper back issues and a lot of nerve and muscle-based issues from forward head carriage.”

Denise Didio Buher, PT, owner of Orthopedic and Spine Physical Therapy in Queensbury, said her practice has also seen an increase in the number of patients seeking treatment for back and neck pain.

“I have certainly seen an increase in all of this because people have been more sedentary since COVID, and they are all working from home. During COVID, I did tele-rehab, and I had a ton of people from New York City who were really trapped in their apartments. I worked with them to correct their seating, correct their posture, and give them exercises to counteract everything that they were doing.”

By Christine Graf

Aviation company Wright Electric has moved its headquarters to the 280-acre Saratoga Technology + Energy Park (STEP) in Malta. 

Founded in Boston in 2017, the company is developing zero-emissions electric airplanes for short regional flights. Their electric motors and motor controllers are versatile and will be able to serve other industries including the maritime industry, according to the company.

Co-founder Jeff Engler, a Hudson Valley native with a B.A. from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, is an entrepreneur who has also worked in the private sector. He previously co-founded Podimetrics, a company that designed the SmartMat, a medical device used for the early detection of foot ulcers in diabetics.

“These foot problems lead to early amputations and early death, and it often tends to be in veterans,” he said. “It costs the medical system billions and billions of dollars. It’s a large social problem and a large economic opportunity, and that’s really the same as with electric airplanes.”

Engler’s interest in electric airplanes was piqued ten years after he visited a web site that allowed him to calculate his personal carbon footprint.

“What I found was that it turned out that each time I ate vegetarian, it had a relatively small impact on my carbon footprint. But a single flight had a huge impact,” he said. “Subsequently, there has been a lot of research on this, and it turns out you would have to eat vegetarian for over a year to offset the carbon from even a single New York to Chicago flight.”

By Paul Post

Community solar is a large array of solar panels at an offsite location that allows customers to access such power without installing panels on their homes. Developers build and operate community solar projects, and energy delivery companies like National Grid purchase and distribute credits generated by the projects to participating customers.

It’s an easy way for residential and small business owners alike to offset the current 8.5 rate of inflation by shaving up to 10 percent off their electric bills.

“There’s very little downside with this,” said Nathan Giebel, EnergyNext LLC vice president of energy services. “It’s a win-win, which is why they’re so popular. We partner with a lot of chambers of commerce. That’s how a lot of businesses come to interact with us.”

EnergyNext is a division of Chicago-based Satori Energy and has an office in Saratoga Springs.

There are three main issues the firm helps clients navigate when deciding which community solar project to enroll in.

“The biggest thing people care about is, How much am I going to save? What’s the guaranteed savings percentage? Most are 10 percent. Some are 5 percent. If you see something less than 10 percent, there’s probably something better available,” Giebel said.