Acupoint stimulation device using focused ultrasound

Author

Tsuruoka, N. ; Watanabe, M. ; Seki, T. ; Matsunaga, T. ; Haga, Y.

Author_Institution

Grad. Sch. of Biomed. Eng., Tohoku Univ., Sendai, Japan

fYear

2010

fDate

Aug. 31 2010-Sept. 4 2010

Firstpage

1258

Lastpage

1261

Abstract

Acupuncture is used widely in oriental medicine. But it is difficult to stimulate continuously or intermittently in daily life with conventional acupuncture. An acupoint stimulation device using focused ultrasound has been developed. Because the device size is about 6 mm in diameter, it can be easily put on the skin during daily life. Appropriate stimulation intensity and pattern can be chosen by changing driving voltage and pattern. In this paper, we stimulated acupoints with this device and measured the blood flow volume of brachial artery. As a result, the blood flow volume increased significantly as well as acupuncture. Because the device stimulate acupoints with intactness of skin, advantages of this device is free from infection and fear and pain by insertion of acupuncture needles.

Keywords

biomedical equipment; biomedical ultrasonics; blood vessels; haemodynamics; ultrasonic focusing; acupoint stimulation device; acupuncture; brachial artery blood flow volume; driving voltage; focused ultrasound; oriental medicine; stimulation intensity; stimulation pattern; Arteries; Blood flow; Polymers; Skin; Ultrasonic imaging; Ultrasonic variables measurement; Volume measurement; Acupuncture Points; Acupuncture Therapy; Adult; Electric Stimulation Therapy; Equipment Design; Equipment Failure Analysis; Female; Humans; Male; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Ultrasonic Therapy;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE

Conference_Location

Buenos Aires

ISSN

1557-170X

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4123-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEMBS.2010.5626422

Filename

5626422