Portable electrotherapy device for treating osteoarthritis and other diseases, defects and injuries of the knee joint

摘要

A device for generating specific and selective signals for application to a capacitive coupling and/or inductive coupling device, for the generation of selective electric or electromagnetic fields in defective or diseased tissue in a human knee joint, for the treatment of the defective or diseased tissue, is disclosed. The device comprises a signal generator that generates compound electric signals that selectively upregulates at least one of Aggrecan gene expression and Type II Collagen gene expression and selectively down-regulates metalloprotease gene expression. The compound electric signals comprise respective signals each having a given duration, amplitude, frequency and duty cycle that is selective for regulating Aggrecan, Type II Collagen and/or metalloprotease gene expression. A means for communicating the compound electric signals to the capacitive and/or inductive coupling device is also provided.