Bone-Conductive Arousal Induction Apparatus

摘要

The present invention provides an apparatus and methods to deliver audible acoustic sound to the brain through bone conduction and to terminate snoring and sleep apnea. The apparatus comprises a control module and a device that measures signs of the snoring and the sleep apnea and generates the audible acoustic sound to arouse a subject. The device is reversibly attachable to a part of a head overlying a skull of the subject and uses a composite sensor comprising a reflectance pulse oximeter and a vibration sensor for the measurement and an acoustic speaker for generation of the sound. The device drives the acoustic speaker to produce human-conversational sound and non-human sound.

主权项

1. A bone-conductive arousal induction apparatus, comprising:
an input and output device, and a control module; the input and output device, provided in a relatively broad surface in relation to thickness and configured to be reversibly attachable to a skin of a head overlying a skull, which comprises a multi-layered flexible rectangular panel, a composite sensor to gather information on tissue oxygen saturation and tissue vibration of a subject, a planar diaphragm moving coil speaker to produce audible acoustic sound, a processing circuit assembly and a battery as power source, which is configured either to be operated by the control module or to operate autonomously, and which is configured to arouse the subject from a stage of sleep by transmitting the audible acoustic sound to a cochlear nerve of the subject via bone conduction of the sound through the skull; and the control module, provided as a separate device from the input and output device and configured to be connectable to the input and output device, which receives and stores the information on the tissue oxygenation and the tissue vibration of the subject, which has a set of action threshold criteria of the tissue oxygen saturation and the tissue vibration to activate the planar diaphragm moving coil speaker of the input and output device, which has electronic commands for initiation and termination of periodic monitoring the tissue oxygen saturation, and which sends and uploads a set of electronic commands to the processing circuit assembly of the input and output device to activate the planar diaphragm moving coil speaker.