The present invention relates to a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, and more particularly to a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device capable of training the pelvic floor muscles inside the body even in a state of wearing clothes and enable of muscle strengthening exercise in an optimal state according to the body information of the user.
A pelvic floor muscle is a muscle tissue including an anus and a urethral sphincter positioned under the pelvis, and the typical disease due to weakening of the pelvic floor muscle is a urinary incontinence. The urinary incontinence is a symptom that the pelvic floor muscle is lengthened due to pregnancy and childbirth, and it becomes worse as woman gets old so that it cannot support the organs such as a bladder, a rectum and others properly and sags downward. Therefore, the treatment of the urinary incontinence is to keep on a contracting exercise of the pelvic floor muscle to restore the muscle power to support the organs such as bladder properly.
For the effective contracting exercise of the pelvic floor muscle, the degree of contraction should be known, but conventionally, there is no way to directly detect the contracting force of the pelvic floor muscle, so the indirect method of exercising for the pelvic floor muscle is used in which a small device is inserted into the vagina of woman and the tightening force of the sphincter is detected, then the target muscle of the pelvic floor muscle is also exercised accordingly. That is, as the pelvic floor muscle, together with the anal sphincter and the urethral sphincter, is connected to the pudendal nerve, if these sphincters contract, then the pelvic floor muscle also contracts, which results in the exercise of pelvic floor muscle.
But the above-mentioned insert-type device has a problem that woman should undress and insert it into the vagina, which is very inconvenient and may arouse a humiliation. And, to strengthen the weak muscle, the muscle should be exercised by contracting against the external resistance such as an exercise with holding a dumbbell, and the exercise of pressing a particular part of the body without external resistance is hard to achieve any substantial muscle exercise effect. But in the conventional insert-type device, any external resistance cannot be applied in the sensitive vagina to exercise, that is, it is a non-resistance exercise, so inevitably the muscle power restoring effect is low.
The invention is proposed to solve the above-mentioned problems, and the object of the invention is to provide a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device capable of training the pelvic floor muscles inside the body even in a state of wearing clothes and enable of muscle strengthening exercise on the optimal condition of external resistance such that the external resistance is proportional to the weight of the pelvic organs of the user and is inversely proportional to the pain causing probability, so that exercise of pelvic floor muscle is possible under the optimized external resistance.
According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device comprising:
According to the other aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the input means 40 can be input an information of user's body height, and the control module 45 can generate a control signal which, if the user's body height increases, the force or compression pressing on the pelvic floor muscle P is reduced inverse-proportionally.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the press-adjusting means 21 comprises of an inclined surface 22 of the bearing element 20 which is inclined longitudinally, so that as the user moves the sitting position longitudinally, the pressing intensity of the bearing element 20 can be adjusted.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the press-adjusting means 21 includes a lifting means 30 of the bearing element 20, which can move the bearing element 20 upward or downward to apply or release the pressing against the pelvic floor muscle P.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the control module 45 controls the force or compression against the user's pelvic floor muscle P to increase proportionally with the proportional constant ranged from 6% to 30% of the user's body weight.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the control module 45 controls the force or compression against the user's pelvic floor muscle P to reduce inverse-proportionally with the proportional constant ranged from 4% to 20% of the user's body height.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the device further includes an abdomen belt 12 fastened around the waist of the user, and an abdomen pressure sensor 13 mounted on the abdomen belt 12 for detecting the infra-abdomen pressure of the user and transmitting the detected signal to the electronic circuitry 32, so that the increasing of the abdomen pressure during exercise can be monitored through the display means 60.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the detecting means 35 comprises of the first sensor 36 and the second sensor 37 disposed on the bearing element 20 along the longitudinal direction with a predetermined interval.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the display means 60 further includes a sitting position guide means 63 to indicate how to seat on the proper position on the bearing element 20 along the longitudinal direction based on the data detected by the first sensor 36 and the second sensor 37 According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device comprising:
According to the other aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein seat position guide means 63 is to guide the sitting position in the manner that the more the user's body weight increases, or the body height reduces, the more the force or compression against the pelvic floor muscle P increases accordingly.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device comprising:
According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device comprising:
According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the percentage of moisture content is ranged from 40% to 85%.
According to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a pelvic floor muscle strengthening device, wherein the water tissue 80 has a slender shape corresponding to the shape of the bearing element 20, so that it can wet around the perineal region of the user as small as possible.
According to the invention, considering that as the pelvic floor muscle P ordinarily supports the organs such as bladder and rectum and others, and the weight of these organs is ordinally proportional to the body weight, if the user's body weight increases, the pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P also increases proportionally during the pelvic floor muscle exercise, then the user should exercise the contraction of the pelvic floor muscle P more strongly to support the increased weight and achieve restoration of muscle power.
And, in case of the same body weight, the teller the user's height is, the thinner she is in body shape. And the thinner she is, the more she is sensitive to external stimulus and feels pains intensively. Therefore, the pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P should be applied in inversely proportional to the height of the user to achieve a comfort exercise without reduced pains. That is, according to the invention, the effective pelvic floor muscle exercise is possible with the optimal pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P which is adjustable in proportion to the user's body weight and in inversely proportional to the pain causing probability.
And, as shown in
And, as shown in
And, as shown in
And, as shown in
And, as the wet tissue 80 is formed or folded as a slender shape corresponding to the shape of the bearing element 20, it can wet only narrow space of the perineal region of the user between the buttocks as small as possible, and as the narrow wet part of the clothes corresponding to the perineal region is almost concealed by the legs when the user stands, so it can be conveniently used without mental burden.
Hereinafter, the preferred embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
The seat body 11 can be such a cushion mat or a chair on which the user can sit on, and the bearing element 20 is a slender protrusion which can access the pelvic floor muscle of the user when the user sits on the seat body 11 through the narrow perineal region between the buttocks, and a cushion sheet 24 covers it.
As shown in
The lifting type press-adjusting means includes a bearing element 20 disposed on the center of the seat body 11 horizontally, and a lifting means 30 such as a vertical screw or a vertical actuator provided under the bearing element 20 as shown in
The inclined surface type adjusting means comprises of the inclined surface 22 of the bearing element 20, in which the height of the bearing element 20 ascends progressively toward the front end of it as shown in
The detecting means 35, as shown in
As shown in
As shown in
As shown if
As for the height adjusting of the bearing element 20 by the lifting means 30, the optimal pressing force data is calculated by use of the information of the body weight and height of the user, then height of the bearing element 20 is adjusted by the lifting means 30 to press the pelvic floor muscle P until it reaches the optimal pressing force. If the data of the weight and height of the user are input through the body information input means 40, the optimal pressing force is calculated, which is proportional to the weight and inversely proportional to the height, and it is applied to the pelvic floor muscle P (shown in
That is, the pelvic floor muscle ordinarily supports the pelvic organs such as bladder and rectum, and the weight of these pelvic organs is ordinarily proportional to the body weight. Therefore, for exercise of contraction of the pelvic floor muscle P, it is necessary to press the pelvic floor muscle P with the force proportional to the body weight of the user to restore the muscle strength of the pelvic floor muscle enough to support the weight of the pelvic organs sufficiently.
If the body weight is equal, the higher the height of the user is, the thinner the body shape is, and generally the user of thin body shape feels pains more strongly because she has less muscle. Therefore, the strength of the external resistance applied against the pelvic floor muscle P should be reduced in inversely proportional to the user's height to achieve a comfort exercise with low pain causing probability.
It is found through experiments that the contracting exercise with a proper pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P is possible if the proportional constant ranged from 6% to 30% of the body weight is applied. If it is lower than 6%, the external resistance is too low to achieve a meaningful exercise, and if it is higher than 30%, it is too painful to keep exercising.
It is also found through experiments that the contracting exercise with a proper pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P is possible if the proportional constant ranged from 4% to 20% of the body height is applied inverse-proportionally. If it is lower than 4%, it is too painful, and if it is higher than 20%, the external resistance is too low to achieve a meaningful exercise.
The invention as described above, differently to the conventional insert type treatment device of urinary incontinence with non-load muscle training, can apply an optimal external resistance necessary to the exercise of pelvic floor muscle P, and the user can effectively exert the contracting force on the pelvic floor muscle in resistance to the external resistance, so the treatment effect can be highly improved.
According to the invention, the device could push up the normally sagged pelvic floor muscle P by the weight of pelvic organs such as a bladder and a rectum in U shape as shown in
As shown in
The input means 40 is provided to input the information about the body weight and height of the user, it can be an input button 45 installed on the front part of the seat body 11, or it can be an input module 47 installed on the external device such as smart phone or PC. In case of the external input module 47, the application program installed on the external device includes the interface display information through which the data of body weight and height can be input.
The control module 45 is built in the electronic circuitry 42 inside the device or stored on the external application program to control the device, and one of the control operation is to receive the information of the body weight and height of user, and generate control signal such that the more the body weight of the user increases, the more the pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P increases, and the more the height of the user increase, the more the pressing force against the pelvic floor muscle P decreases, As shown in
According to the other embodiment of the invention, the user can exercise the pelvic floor muscle P passively while wearing the clothes by applying electric stimulus on the pelvic floor muscle P, which will be described with reference to
Preferably, the bearing element 20 is in the slender shape with the width being from 12 mm to 39 mm and the length being from 40 mm to 250 mm, so it can press the pelvic floor muscle in the pelvis through the narrow space between the buttocks or hipbones.
A wet tissue 80 moisturized by water is provided on the bearing element 20 to cover the first electrode 70 and the second electrode 71. The wet tissue 80 is formed or folded in the slender shape corresponding to the bearing element 20, and preferably with the width being from 15 mm to 50 mm and the length being from 50 mm to 250 mm, so it can wet the least area of the perineal region of the user which is almost concealed from outside. The percentage of moisture content of the wet tissue 80 is preferably ranged from 40% to 85%, so that it can contain sufficient moisture and can wet the user's clothes to effectively transmit the electric stimulus through the wet clothes to the skin of user while the user wears the clothes. The wet tissue 80 may be disposable or it can be used repeatedly by washing or steaming. If the wet tissue 80 is made or folded in the slender shape corresponding to the bearing element 20, the wet area of the clothes can be reduced, and when the user stands after using the device, the wet perineal region is concealed by the legs and the user can walk around with easy mind.
Meanwhile, if the first electrode 70 and the second electrode 71 are disposed in the width direction, the electrodes would butt into the hipbones and it cannot access the pelvic floor muscle P, so it cannot transmit the electric stimulus to the pelvic floor muscle P effectively. And if the electrodes are disposed in the width direction, the buttocks may be wetted and it could be exposed outside to incur humiliation,
The scope of the invention as described above will not be restricted by the embodiments and the accompanying drawings, and various modifications, changes and transform can be possible without departing the technical ideas of the invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10-2022-0007910 | Jan 2022 | KR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/KR2022/001125 | 1/21/2022 | WO |