The disclosure herein relates to a system that measures physiological signals of the human body and controls an acupuncture device to do acupuncture treatment.
Acupuncture has a history of more than 2,000 years in China. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that there is Qi and blood in the human body that regulate the basic functions of the human body. The theory of acupuncture is mainly based on this theory of Qi and blood. Acupuncture treatment is done to ensure that the human body has enough Qi and blood to circulate smoothly throughout the body. During acupuncture, an acupuncturist inserts needles (usually filiform needles) into the patient's body at a certain angle and on certain locations to treat diseases. Sometimes, an acupuncturist uses techniques such as twisting and lifting-thrusting to stimulate specific parts of the human body to enhance the acupuncture effectiveness.
To make the acupuncture treatment more effective, acupuncturists insert, remove needles or uses acupuncture lifting-thrusting or twisting techniques according to some observable physiological signals of the patient. For example, acupuncturists often insert needles when the patients inhale and remove needles when patients exhale.
Patients usually receive acupuncture when they go to hospitals or clinics during the day. However, according to the meridian theory of traditional Chinese medicine, each meridian has its own active or quiet time. In this way, the best time for treatment may be at night or early in the morning. In addition, the onset or flareup of various diseases is not limited to the daytime, such as insomnia and headaches. Therefore, the market urgently needs an automatic acupuncture device that users can operate at home anytime when needed. It is also ideal for the automatic acupuncture device to perform acupuncture treatment according to the physiological signals of the human body for better effectiveness.
The inventor previously invented an automatic acupuncture device that people can do acupuncture treatment at their home when they need [US20210022959A1]. This solves the problem of unavailable acupuncture treatment during night. The inventor further brought up the idea to integrate the measurement of physiological signals with the automatic acupuncture device to control acupuncture treatment accordingly.
According to one aspect of the invention, a physiological signal assisted acupuncture system that utilizes human physiological signals to perform acupuncture treatment, comprising: automatic acupuncture device, which insert acupuncture needles into human body, remove needles or implement acupuncture techniques; physiological signal acquisition instrument, used to measure human physiological signals; control system, which controls the acupuncture device to insert acupuncture needles, remove needles, or perform acupuncture techniques, based on the physiological signals.
Optionally, the physiological signal assisted acupuncture system further comprises a display device to display user interface for information input and output, wherein interface for information input is for users to input personal information and health conditions, or to configure the acupuncture system, and wherein the user interface for information output is to display operation guidelines and/or to instruct users for acupuncture treatments.
Optionally, the physiological signals are one or more of ECG, skin impedance, respiration, EEG, blood flow, pulse waves, heart rate variability, and derived data from above signals through methods of multiple scale entropy, intrinsic mode functions, Fourier transform, short-time Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or Hilbert-Huang transform.
Optionally, the control system, the physiological signal acquisition instrument and the automatic acupuncture device are physically integrated into one piece or are multiple pieces with wireless communication.
Optionally, the control system controls the acupuncture device to perform acupuncture techniques based on respiratory signals: the acupuncture device performs lifting-thrusting and/or twisting techniques after each inhale and/or exhale, or after a predetermined times of breathing cycles.
Optionally, the control system controls acupuncture needles of the automatic acupuncture device to move up or down a predetermined distance at a predetermined timing after the breathing signal reaches troughs of the signal, and the control system controls the acupuncture needle to move down or up a predetermined distance at a predetermined timing after breathing signal reaches peaks of the signal.
Optionally, the control system calculates a user's stress levels according to physiological signals and performs acupuncture treatment when the user is determined to be stressed.
Optionally, the control system judges whether the user is awake or asleep and/or determines sleep quality of the user based on the physiological signals: when the user wakes up in middle of night or when the sleep quality is below a predetermined threshold, the control system starts acupuncture treatments and/or performs acupuncture techniques; when the user falls asleep or the sleep quality is above a predetermined threshold, the control system stops acupuncture treatment.
Optionally, a method to determine whether the user is awake, asleep and to determine the user's sleep quality is based on cardiopulmonary coupling: high frequency coupling band of 0.1˜0.4 Hz reflects characteristics of steady-state non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) or stable sleep; low-frequency coupling band of 0.01˜0.10 Hz reflects characteristics of non-steady-state NREM sleep or unstable sleep; extremely low frequency coupling band of 0.001˜0.010 Hz is related to rapid eye movement phase or awake.
Optionally, the physiological signals are used to diagnose human body imbalances or diseases, and diagnosis results are based on modern medical science findings and/or diagnosis results are mapped to Chinese Medicine diagnosis from Eight-Principle Differentiation, Defense-Qi-Nutrient-Blood Differentiation, Organ Visceral Differentiation, Six Meridian Differentiation, Qi Blood Body Fluid Differentiation or Triple Warmer Differentiation.
Optionally, pulse waves are used to diagnose human body imbalances or diseases and the method is as follows: comparing the pulse wave characteristics from Cun, Guan, Chi positions of radial arteries on wrists, if one or more pulse wave characteristic values are bigger or smaller than other values with a predetermined threshold, or one or more pulse wave characteristic values are bigger or smaller than population means with a predetermined threshold, the organs that are related to that one or more positions are diagnosed to have imbalances or disorders; wherein pulse wave characteristics comprise strength of the pulse wave, spectrum powers, and/or propagation speed of the pulse waves.
Optionally, electrodermal activity is used to diagnose human body imbalances or diseases and the method is as follows: measuring and comparing skin impedances of multiple meridians, if skin impedances of one or more meridians value is higher or lower than other values with a predetermined threshold, corresponding organ(s) are diagnosed to be in imbalance state(s) and relevant acupuncture points are selected to do acupuncture treatment.
Optionally, ECG is used to diagnose human body imbalances or diseases and the method is as follows: calculating the heart rate variability from ECG signal, calculating spectral domain characteristics based on the heart rate variability, and determining human body imbalances or diseases based on power of the spectrum.
Optionally, when human body imbalances or diseases are diagnosed, the acupuncture points are selected for treatment according to Chinese Medicine Theory, or according to acupuncture effectiveness of different acupuncture points, wherein acupuncture effectiveness is manifested by improvements of patient's symptoms and/or improvements of physiological biomarkers.
Optionally, the physiological signal assisted acupuncture system further comprises a clock instrument, configured to provide time information for the control circuit to control the acupuncture device to perform acupuncture on human body at specific times.
Optionally, the control circuit controls the acupuncture device to provide acupuncture to treat imbalanced organs and/or their relevant organs at specific times according to Chinese Medicine Body Clock Theory, which describes that starting from 11:00 pm, the corresponding human organs that dominate every two hours are: gallbladder, liver, lung, large intestine, stomach, spleen, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, pericardium, and triple warmer.
Optionally, the relevant organs are determined by five element generating and controlling theory and/or exterior-interior correlation theory; wherein, the five element generating and controlling theory states that liver generates heart, controls spleen, is generated by kidney and is controlled by lung; heart generates spleen, controls lung, is controlled by kidney and is generated by liver; spleen generates lung, controls kidney, is controlled by liver and generated by heart; lung generates kidney, controls liver, is controlled by heart and generated spleen; kidney generates liver, controls heart, is controlled by spleen and generated by lung; wherein the exterior-interior correlation theory states that lung correlates with large intestine, heart correlates with small intestine, liver correlates with gall bladder, spleen correlates with stomach, kidney correlates with bladder, and pericardium correlates with triple warmer.
Optionally, the acupuncture device of the physiological signal assisted acupuncture system holds two or more acupuncture needles and is configured to electrically stimulate the human body when the power is turned on.
Optionally, the waveform of the electrical stimulation is sine waves, triangle waves, square waves of one or more frequencies, or density waves comprising of one or more of these waveforms.
Optionally, the physiological signal assisted acupuncture system further comprises a speaker or headphone, configured to generate a sound to stimulate or calm users, and the control circuit controlling the acupuncture device to perform acupuncture works in synergy with the sound.
Optionally, the sound is a piece of music, a piece of nature sound, and/or a piece of synthesized sound of different frequencies.
Optionally, the sound and the control signal are controlled by respiratory signals and/or work in synergy with the respiratory signals.
The embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The physiological signal acquisition device 110 is used to collect physiological signals of the human body. The physiological signals of the human body may be one or more of electrocardiogram (ECG), skin impedance, respiration signal, electroencephalograph (EEG), blood flow, pulse wave, heart rate variability (HRV), or derived data from above signals through methods of multiple scale entropy, intrinsic mode functions, Fourier transform, short-time Fourier transform, wavelet transform, or Hilbert-Huang transform.
The automatic acupuncture device 120 can receive the control signal to automatically insert the acupuncture needle into the human body. The control signal may come from the control system 130, or may be triggered by, for example, an operator touching a button.
Based on the physiological signals of the human body, the control system 130 controls the acupuncture device to start acupuncture, stop the acupuncture, or perform acupuncture techniques such as lifting-thrusting and/or twisting to enhance acupuncture effects.
For example, the control system can control the acupuncture device to perform acupuncture on human tissue based on the respiratory signal. Specifically, the acupuncture system may perform the acupuncture technique of lifting-thrusting and/or twisting every time the patient inhales and/or exhales, or after every a few predetermined breathing cycles.
Besides the sound and the control signal that are in synergy, the system can also integrate in the breathing signal and makes the sound, the control signal and the breathing signal all in synergy. This will further enhance the acupuncture effect.
In the example of
In an example, the human body physiological signal assisting acupuncture system also comprises a display device that operates to display a user input information interface and a system information display interface, where the user input information interface is for the user to input personal information and disease information, or to set up the automatic acupuncture system. The system information display interface is used to display system information to guide users to use and to provide treatment guidance.
While various aspects and embodiments have been disclosed herein, other aspects and embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art. The various aspects and embodiments disclosed herein are for purposes of illustration and are not intended to be limiting, with the true scope and spirit being indicated by the following claims.