Implanted medical device for medicament release or electro-therapy powered by an ultrasound source external to the body

摘要

A therapeutic device 1, 3 and method for either delivering electrical energy (fig 3) or a medicament (fig 4) to a body organ or tissue. Preferably the device is implanted inside the patient's body. To power the devices, preferably an external source of ultrasound 10, 12, possibly commanded 13 by a physiological sensor 11, transmits ultrasound 8 to the device 1, 3. For electro-therapy (fig 3), the device 1 receives the ultrasound 8 and transforms it into electrical current that is delivered via electrodes 2, possibly for muscle stimulation of paralysed limbs in response to the sensor 11 when positioned in the brain. For medicament delivery (fig 4), the ultrasound 8 causes member 7 to oscillate thereby forcing a medicament 6 from storage compartment 5 through a port 9 in the device housing 4. A further device (see fig 7) has a housing 15 with multiple medicament storage bubbles 16 which can rupture in response to ultrasound allowing the medicament 6 to be released though ports 17. The ports 17 may be omitted.