JP2714506B2 - Biological skin condition measuring device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a living body epidermis condition measuring apparatus capable of reducing the tension of a subject at the time of measurement, and simultaneously measuring water and collecting sebum.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recent studies have shown that the condition of the epidermis, particularly the condition of human skin, can be directly determined by the moisture contained in the stratum corneum covering the surface. Has become. In measuring the water content of the epidermis, the impedance and conductivity are measured through an alternating current that is weak in the electrical properties of the epidermis, and these measurements are converted to water to quantitatively measure the water content of the stratum corneum. It has been common practice.

[0003] Conventionally, the state of the epidermis of a living body is mainly judged instinctively, or by judging the result of an inquiry and the result of a measured value of epidermis moisture. However, the former determination has low reliability, and the latter determination uses, for example, a measuring device in which a probe is brought into contact with the epidermis and the detection signal is transmitted to a processing device via a connection cord. For example, when a subject walks on a carpet, the charged potential of the subject may be discharged, or the subject may be subjected to an electric shock due to a leakage current from a power supply.

Recently, a technique for comprehensively measuring the condition of the epidermis by measuring the amount of sebum oozing from the surface of the epidermis in addition to the measurement of the water content of the epidermis has been introduced. The actual method of measuring the amount of sebum is to attach sebum to a specific medium and react it with a chemical, measure the degree of discoloration, or simply attach the sebum to a ground glass-like sampling plate, It was a method of measuring the amount of sebum by a typical permeation amount.

[0005] However, the former method is a method of reacting with a chemical or gas at the time of measurement, and the latter method is often difficult to separate and measure sebum and water and involves a large error.
In addition, the former two have to either clean the sampling plate after measurement using chemicals or detergents, or discard it after each measurement. There are many problems, such as giving a discomfort to the operator or the operator, and increasing the running cost and wasting resources. Further, conventionally, sebum and water are each measured separately, so that much time and trouble are required for the measurement, and since each data is individually taken, there is no synchronization between the data. There were challenges.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a living body skin condition measuring apparatus capable of simultaneously and simply measuring the water content and sebum content of a living body epidermis without causing discomfort to a subject. It is in.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a probe having a plurality of electrodes at its tip and measuring the moisture content of the epidermis between the electrodes as conductivity, and a light source for applying sebum to the electrodes of the probe. Biological epidermis comprising: an optical quantification unit that irradiates far-infrared light, receives the reflected light by a photoelectric sensor, and calculates the amount of sebum by a microcomputer by optically quantifying the amount of sebum. The above object has been achieved by providing a state measuring device.

[0008]

According to the present invention, when the probe is pressed against the epidermis of the living body, the moisture content is measured via the conductivity of the epidermis between a plurality of electrodes at the tip of the probe, and the optical quantification means is used to measure the water content of the probe. When pressed, the sebum adhering to the probe electrode is irradiated with far-infrared light from a light source, and the reflected light is received by a photoelectric sensor to calculate the amount of sebum by a microcomputer. The amount of sebum secretion can be measured.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below with reference to the embodiments shown in FIGS. In each of the drawings, FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the living body epidermis state measuring device of the present invention,
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the probe of the moisture measuring means A shown in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the sebum measuring means B shown in FIG. 1 and a cross-sectional view of the measuring optical system, and FIG. It is a block diagram of the arithmetic processing means C shown.

The living body epidermis state measuring apparatus of this embodiment is shown in FIG.
As shown in the figure, a moisture measuring means A which presses against the epidermis of a living body to measure skin moisture and collects sebum, and a sebum measuring means B which measures the amount of sebum collected when the moisture measuring means is pressed. And an arithmetic processing means C for converting an analog output signal from the block into a digital signal and arithmetically processing the measurement data obtained by each block. Further, as will be described later, the living body epidermis state measuring apparatus according to the present embodiment performs an input process for inputting the results of an inquiry and the like, And an arithmetic processing means for comprehensively diagnosing the condition of the epidermis and outputting a countermeasure.

The moisture measuring means A for measuring the moisture of the skin and collecting the sebum is housed in a separate small probe for convenient handling and has a memory backed up by a secondary battery. In preparation for the measurement, the data of the water content is stored in the memory at the time of measurement, and after the measurement is completed, the measurement data of the sebum and the water content of the sebum attached to the electrode when the probe is combined with the arithmetic processing means C It is configured to transfer the measurement data to the arithmetic processing means C.
This will be described more specifically below.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the moisture measuring means A comprises a probe 1, a central electrode 2A provided at the tip thereof, an electrode 2B and a guard electrode 2C concentrically surrounding the central electrode 2A. An electrode 2 and an AC source 3 for applying an AC voltage to the center electrode 2A, and the center electrode 2A and the electrode 2B to which the AC voltage is applied from the AC source 3 by pressing the tip of the probe 1 against the skin. It is configured to measure the conductivity of the skin surface from the electric current flowing between them and calculate the water content based on this conductivity as described later.

The moisture measuring means A is provided with the electrode 2
B, a detection circuit 4 including an electric bandpass filter, an AC amplifier, a detector, and a DC amplifier for detecting a current based on a frequency generated by the AC generation source 3, and an analog input from the detection circuit 4. An A / D converter 5 for converting a signal into a digital signal, a memory 6 for storing a digital signal input from the A / D converter 5 as data in a time series at a fixed timing, and sequentially connected to the memory 6; A P / S (Paararell to Serial) conversion circuit 7 and signal contacts 8A, 8B for transmitting data read from the memory 6 to the arithmetic processing means C when the moisture measuring means A is combined with the arithmetic processing means C. It is provided with. Also,
The moisture measuring means A includes a controller 9 for controlling the constituent devices thereof, and a switch 10 which operates when the moisture measuring means A is combined with the arithmetic processing means C. 9 is configured to control each of the above components.

The probe 1 includes a secondary battery 11 made of Ni—Cd or the like for operating an internal circuit, and a secondary battery 11
Power contacts 12A, 12B which are automatically brought into contact with the internal circuit when the charging current of the
The secondary battery in the probe 1 is configured to be charged from an internal power supply using a commercial AC power supply in the arithmetic processing unit C when the secondary battery is combined. Therefore, the probe 1 at the time of measurement is completely separated and insulated from the ground and the commercial AC power supply, so that the subject is not affected by an electric shock at the time of measurement.

The probe 1 can improve the reproducibility of the measured values by using a mechanism in which an elastic body such as a spring is elastically mounted to keep the pressing force of the electrode 2 constant. The guard electrode 2C is connected to the electrode 2 from the surrounding potential.
A and 2B are electrodes that are separated (usually connected to ground potential).

The sebum measuring means B is a part for measuring the amount of sebum. When the probe 1 is pressed against the skin to measure the water, the central electrode 2A of the electrode 2 for measuring the water is used as a sebum sampling plate. And sebum is collected on the central electrode 2A simultaneously with the measurement of water. When the probe 1 is combined with the arithmetic processing means C, the electrode 2A and FIG.
The optical system in the arithmetic processing means C shown in FIG. 1 is connected to measure the amount of sebum. As this optical system, far-infrared light is adopted, and by using this far-infrared light, the influence on the measurement by the skin surface moisture is removed as compared with the conventional method, and more precise measurement can be performed. .

That is, the sebum measuring means B is provided with the following optical quantification means. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, the sebum measuring means B includes an installation member 13 for manually installing the probe 1 at a predetermined position of the arithmetic processing means C after measuring the moisture of the epidermis with the probe 1. A light source 14A, such as a light bulb or an LED, which is provided in the recess of the installation member 13 and is turned on by the lamp power supply 14, and a probe 1 installed in the recess of the installation member 13 for emitting the light emitted by the light source 14A. A photoelectric sensor 15A that receives light reflected by the electrode 2B also serving as a sebum sampling plate at the tip of the sensor, and an amplifier 16 that amplifies the current from the photoelectric sensor 15A, and calculates the current amplified by the amplifier 16 as a signal b. It is applied to a multiplexer in the processing means C, and the arithmetic processing means C is configured to calculate the amount of sebum. At that time, the photoelectric sensor 15A
By inserting an optical band-pass filter 17 having a spectral characteristic related to the absorption wavelength band of sebum into the incident path of, a large SN ratio (Signal vs. Noise Ratio) can be obtained.

The surface of the electrode 2B is metal-plated so as to reflect light rays well, and has a smooth surface so that the attached sebum can be removed well by wiping it with a fine cloth for eyeglasses. In some cases, irregularities may be formed slightly for the purpose of increasing the amount of adhered particles. The photoelectric sensor 15A is a photoconductive type such as a PbSe element except for a pyroelectric type, or a thermoelectric type such as a thermopile or a photovoltaic type, and a far-infrared light related to the vicinity of an absorption band of a sebum component. Those sensitive to the area can be used.

The arithmetic processing means C includes an analog multiplexer for switching analog signals from the moisture measuring means A and sebum measuring means B, and an analog signal switched and selected by the analog multiplexer, as described later. An A / D converter for converting into a digital signal as a discrete value, and a microcomputer for performing arithmetic processing based on the digital signal converted by the A / D converter and controlling the operation of the entire system, a command keyboard, a display, and the like. It is provided with. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, the arithmetic processing means C operates a DAS 25 including an analog multiplexer and an A / D converter in a manual mode by a key-in command or an automatic mode by a key-in command via a keyboard 23 attached to the microcomputer 22. Then, by selecting the signals a and b from the moisture measuring means A and the sebum measuring means B corresponding to the above-mentioned measurement items, the mode is appropriately switched to a measurement mode relating to the amount of water and the amount of sebum, and the water content is determined from the respective measurement data. It is configured to calculate the amount and sebum amount.

In the probe 1, an analog signal is converted into a digital signal by the A / D converter 5, and the moisture measurement data stored in the memory 6 is stored in the probe 1.
Is read out as necessary after being combined with the arithmetic processing means C, converted into a serial signal, transmitted to the arithmetic processing means C shown in FIG. 5 through the signal contacts 8A and 8B, and sent by the S / P conversion circuit 24. The signals are converted into parallel signals and input to the microcomputer 22 from the input I / F (interface) 26, and the microcomputer 22 calculates the water content. In this case, if a large amount of data is configured to be transmitted in time series to the arithmetic processing unit C, it is possible to determine the contact state of the electrode 2 with the subject, calculate the average value, and the like. The accuracy of the value can be improved.

The microcomputer 22 sends the processed result to the display driver 2 as needed.
7, a display such as a CRT or a liquid crystal, and a printer 29 can be displayed and printed. Also,
The arithmetic processing means C has a built-in power supply such as a commercial AC power supply or a battery, and can supply a current to each circuit and a charging current for the secondary battery in the probe.

After the measurement of the water content of the epidermis has been completed with the probe 1, the probe 1 is set in the recess of the setting member 13;
When a light beam is irradiated from the lamp power supply 14 to the electrode 2B also serving as a sebum sampling plate at the tip of the probe 1, the light beam is reflected by the electrode 2B. The light beam is received by the photoelectric sensor 15A, photoelectrically converted, and the current is converted by the amplifier 16. When the signal is amplified and applied as a signal b to the multiplexer in the arithmetic processing means C, the arithmetic processing means C calculates the amount of sebum.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the moisture content of the epidermis and the amount of sebum are simultaneously measured only by pressing the probe 1 against the epidermis, thereby detecting the sebum and cleaning the sampling plate. The use of gas and detergents does not cause discomfort to the operator or the subject, and consumables are not required, so running costs are low, and the measurement of moisture and the operation of collecting sebum can be performed. Simultaneous measurement can be performed, and the simultaneity of each measurement data can be assured, and medical and pharmaceutical personnel can operate the device easily and easily.

Furthermore, according to the present embodiment, since the probe 1 and the microcomputer 22 are cordless during measurement, there is no connection cord as in the prior art, and the subject is not subjected to an electric shock due to static electricity or leakage current. I will not give.

The biological skin condition measuring apparatus of the present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, but has a plurality of electrodes at the tip and measures the moisture content of the epidermis between the electrodes as conductivity. A probe that emits far-infrared light from a light source to the sebum attached to the probe electrode, receives the reflected light by a photoelectric sensor, and calculates the amount of sebum by a microcomputer. The present invention is included in a living body epidermis state measuring device provided with a quantification unit.

[0026]

The biological skin condition measuring apparatus of the present invention can easily and quickly measure the water content and the sebum content of the skin of a living body without giving the subject any discomfort.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of a living body epidermis state measuring apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a probe of the moisture measuring means A shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the sebum measuring means B shown in FIG. 1 and a cross-sectional view of an optical system for measuring the sebum.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the arithmetic processing means C shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 A moisture measuring means B sebum measuring means 1 probe 2 electrode 6 memory 22 microcomputer

Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Michio Kawai 2-9, Yamate, Funabashi-shi, Chiba 101 of Kao's House 2 (72) Inventor Katsuyoshi Nakano 693-7 Miyauchi, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa-ken (72) Inventor Akira Matsushita, Kanagawa-ken 1-12-5 Miyazaki, Miyamae-ku, Kawasaki-shi

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A probe having a plurality of electrodes at a tip end thereof and measuring the moisture content of the epidermis between the electrodes as conductivity.
Optical quantification means for irradiating the sebum adhering to the probe electrode with far-infrared light from a light source, receiving the reflected light by a photoelectric sensor, and calculating the amount of sebum by a microcomputer; A biological skin condition measuring device, comprising: