JPS6260104B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a lower limb decompression device for treating various diseases occurring in the lower limbs by maintaining the lower limbs in a reduced pressure state and increasing blood circulation in the area.

For example, if blood flow in the lower limbs is lower than normal due to vascular disease, it may cause numbness, intermittent claudication, and even progress to tissue necrosis.
These occur because metabolism at the cellular level is inhibited by lack of blood flow. Surgical treatment is used for these severe cases, and medical treatment for mild cases, including ingestion of medicines, heat treatment, and pine surge treatment. However, some medicines have little effect when taken. Furthermore, it is difficult to deny the indirect side effects of long-term drug use. Therefore, heat therapy and pine surge therapy are performed in conjunction with this, but in the case of heat therapy, blood circulation is increased by heating the body surface and causing a response such as secondary blood vessel dilation.
It is an indirect method, and the equipment is complicated and difficult to handle. Furthermore, in the case of pine surge treatment, due to its nature, it is difficult to uniformly massage the entire lower limb, and it can be said to be a partial and non-uniform method.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a device that increases blood circulation in the lower limbs in a more direct manner. Another object of the present invention is to provide a device that has a simple structure and is easy to handle.

The present invention is a device that directly dilates blood vessels in the lower limbs by reducing pressure on the entire lower limbs, thereby promoting blood circulation. In other words, the present invention is characterized by: a bed; a vacuum chamber having one end fixed to the lower half of the bed and having an opening at the other end and expandable in the length direction; A thin flexible sealing membrane provided, a decompression means communicated with the decompression chamber, and the other end having an opening when the decompression chamber is extended to a predetermined length are removably fixed on the bed. This lower extremity decompression device has means for preventing the human body from being drawn into the decompression chamber, and a torso support provided in the upper half of the bed to prevent the human body from being drawn into the decompression chamber.

The lower half of the bed is the side where the lower legs are located when a person lies down, and the upper half is the side where the head is located.

According to the present invention, a force is applied in the direction of dilating the blood vessel wall due to the reduced pressure, so the diameter of the blood vessel increases, the resistance to blood flow decreases, and as a result, the speed of blood circulation increases. Therefore, this method can be said to be the most direct method that directly affects blood flow dynamics. Moreover, unlike thermal bathing, you do not sweat a lot, and there is no need to take off your clothes to take a hot bath.

Next, the apparatus of the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically depicting an embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention. The bed 1 on which the patient can lie on his/her back is the upper half 1a.
and a lower half part 1b, and the region 1c where the waist of the patient touches forms a concave, preferably V-shaped valley. The bed 1 is made of any material such as woven fabric assembled with metal pipes, wood, plastic, or iron. The decompression chamber 2 is formed by a cylindrical telescopic bellows, one end of which is fixed to a stop plate 3 provided at the end of the lower half 1b of the bed 1. At the other end of the decompression chamber 2, a flange 4 is attached to a bellows with bolts 5. The flange 4 is provided with an opening large enough to allow the patient's lower limbs or lower back to be inserted therein. The opening preferably has a circular or oval shape eccentric to the flange 4. The opening is provided with a thin flexible sealing membrane 6 which is attached in a cylindrical manner along its periphery and extends outward. On the other hand, decompression chamber 2
For example, a flange having a through hole with a relatively small diameter is provided at the end of the bed that is fixed to the stop plate 3, and the conduit 8 of the pressure reducing means 7 passes through both the flange and the stop plate 3. It's on.

A pair of locking tools 9 are provided at the bottom of the V-shape of the bed 1 or slightly closer to the upper half 1a. This locking tool 9 is designed to hook the arm 4a provided around the flange 4 from the upper half 1a side toward the lower half 1b when the lower limb is inserted into the decompression chamber 2 and extended. This allows the decompression chamber 2 to be extended and detachably fixed to the bed.

It is preferable that each arm 4a is provided with a handle in order to easily fix the decompression chamber 2 to the locking tool 9. A torso support 10 for supporting and fixing the torso of the patient on the bed is provided on the upper half 1a of the bed. The torso support 10 is, for example, substantially flexible in the longitudinal direction of the bed, eg without bending, twisting or torsion, but in the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the bed, i.e. A material having flexibility in the longitudinal direction can be used. For this purpose, the trunk support is formed into a band-like body using a flexible sheet material made of, for example, flexible plastic, fiber, rubber, or fiber impregnated with or laminated with flexible plastic or rubber. Either a metal mesh is provided on the entire surface, or a plurality of rod-like bodies, such as a bicycle chain, which can be bent freely in the longitudinal direction but cannot be bent in the direction perpendicular to the mesh, are arranged along the longitudinal direction of the strip. The book is installed. An example of such a reinforcing material is shown as a rod-shaped body 11 in FIG.

As another configuration example of the trunk support, the trunk support 10
There is a method in which the torso support band is simply a belt-like body made of fiber or flexible plastic, and a string-like stopper with one end fixed near the upper end of the bed is fixed to the torso support band during treatment. More preferably, instead of fixing the fastener to the torso support band, it is fixed to the tip of the sealing membrane 6 after the torso support band is set on the patient. Also, instead of providing a stopper, a part of the tip of the sealing membrane 6 is
After setting on the patient, the torso support 10 is folded back into a built-in shape and fixed to the flange 4 of the decompression chamber, or the tip of the sealing membrane 6 is attached to the bed 1.
It can also be fixed to a support, for example an arm, provided on the. It is preferable that any of the above fixing methods be removable.

Near the center of the bed is a human body suction detection means 12 for detecting and stopping the decompression when the patient is drawn into the decompression chamber 2 due to excessive decompression during decompression treatment. is provided. The detection means may be of any type as long as it can determine whether or not the human body is set in the normal position. For example, a photoelectric switch, a magnetic proximity switch, an ultrasonic proximity switch, a mechanical limit switch, etc. are used. In the illustrated example, a mechanical limit switch is used, and the limit switch is operated by pulling a spring 14 which is secured to any part of the human body by a clip 13.

FIG. 2 is a partial cross-sectional view, with some parts omitted, of a patient 15 receiving reduced pressure treatment using the apparatus shown in FIG. 1. The decompression chamber 2 is shown extended to a predetermined length, and ring-shaped reinforcing members 2a are attached to the bellows in the form of individual rings or spirals for radial support. The bellows is made of an airtight sheet material such as rubber, flexible plastic, or woven or nonwoven fabric impregnated with or laminated with these materials, and the reinforcing material 2a is made of metal such as iron, stainless steel, etc.
An elastic rod-shaped body, hollow rod-shaped body, or band-shaped body made of plastic or the like is used.

In FIG. 2, the lower limbs of a person to be treated 15 are inserted into the decompression chamber 2, and after the lower limbs of the patient 15 are surrounded by a cylindrical seal membrane extending outward from the flange 4, the tip of the trunk support 10 is The torso supports 10 are fixed to the bed 1 by anchoring them to each other using locking means 10a such as magic tape provided at the sides.

The A-A view in FIG. 2 is shown in FIG. 3, and the relationship between the torso support 10 and the patient 15 and the relationship between the arm 4a of the flange 4 and the locking tool 9 of the bed can be understood. I'm starting to be able to do it. Torso support 10
It is more preferable to gather the fixed ends on the bed in the center and set the torso support so that they are in close contact with each other along almost the entire circumference of the torso of the patient.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged partial sectional view showing how the trunk support 10 in FIG. 2 is used. A sealing membrane 6 whose end is attached to the inside of the opening of the flange 4 of the decompression chamber 2 and extends outward from the opening surrounds the waist of the patient 15. The sealing membrane 6 may be made of a thin flexible sheet material such as rubber, flexible plastic, or any material impregnated with or laminated with these materials, as long as it is airtight and can closely adhere to the waist during decompression to exert a sufficient sealing effect. The length of the sealing film is long enough so that when the trunk support 10 is placed on it, the trunk support 10 does not protrude, and the tip part 6a
The torso support 10 and the sealing membrane 6 are compressed by the force acting in the direction in which the patient is drawn into the decompression chamber 2 during decompression.
In order to prevent misalignment, it is preferable to wrap it around a metal ring or the like to form a protrusion.

Next, the operation of the lower limb decompression device of the present invention will be explained.

As shown in FIG. 2, a patient lies facing upward on a bed 1 and inserts his or her lower limbs into a decompression chamber 2. After the arm 4a of the flange 4 of the decompression chamber is hooked onto the locking tool 9 of the bed and fixed, the torso support 10 is fixed.
The waist is fixed from above the sealing membrane 6 by means of the above-mentioned means, and then the spring 14 of the limit switch 12 is pulled, and in a tensioned state, the waist is fixed to the torso support 10 or a part of clothing with the clip 13. At this time, the contact of the limit switch 12 is on.
Next, the pressure is reduced by the pressure reducing means 7, which will be explained with reference to the electrical-pneumatic circuit diagram shown in FIG.

The drive motor 21 of the vacuum pump 20 is started by turning on the power switch and the limit switch 12, and exhausts the air in the decompression chamber 2. This is confirmed by the operation lamp 21a. The degree of pressure reduction is operated within the range of -30 mm to -70 mmHg. This adjustment is performed by adjusting the atmosphere release valve 25 while watching the vacuum gauge 24. After completing the decompression treatment for a predetermined time, first turn off the power switch 23 to stop the vacuum pump 20 and close the atmosphere release valve 2.
Open 5 to a large extent and return the pressure inside the vacuum chamber to atmospheric pressure. Next, the limit switch clip 13 and torso support 10 are removed, and the lower limb is removed from the vacuum chamber.

During decompression, the patient receives a force proportional to the difference between atmospheric pressure and the pressure inside the decompression chamber. This is a force that pulls the patient into the reduced pressure chamber. The magnitude of this force is the area of the flange opening x the pressure difference, so
The smaller the opening size, the better. By providing a flange and adjusting the size of its opening,
It can be optimized independently of the diameter of the bellows.

On the other hand, during decompression, the expandable decompression chamber receives a force in the direction of contraction, which acts to further strengthen the fixation between the arm 4a of the flange and the locking tool 9 of the bed, making it possible to perform decompression treatment stably.

Decompression treatment of the lower limbs was performed on 10 people using the device of the present invention. Measure the pressure in the decompression chamber with a scale of 50 mm on the vacuum gauge.
When the patient was set to Hg and underwent decompression treatment for 10 minutes, the average blood flow before and after treatment was 2.5 and 11.2 (ml/100ml, respectively).
min.). On the other hand, for comparison, when the lower limbs were immersed in a hot water bath at 40°C for 10 minutes, the average blood flow before and after was 2.5 and 8.1 (ml/100ml min.), respectively. This shows that the lower limb decompression device is an excellent method for increasing blood circulation in the lower limbs. As mentioned above, this device is promising for treating vascular diseases, but it can also be effectively used in other ways. For example, it is effective in reducing muscle pain after sports or other fatigue, and in treating constipation by increasing blood flow to the lower extremities.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the device of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a view showing its usage state, Fig. 3 is a view taken along the line A-A in Fig. 2, and Fig. 4 is a partially enlarged sectional view of Fig. 2. , FIG. 5 shows an electrical-pneumatic circuit diagram used in the present apparatus. 1: bed, 2: decompression chamber, 4: flange, 6:
Seal membrane, 7: pressure reducing means, 9: locking tool, 10: trunk support, 12: limit switch.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A bed, a decompression chamber having one end fixed to the lower half of the bed and having an opening at the other end and expandable and contractible in the length direction, and provided around the opening. A thin flexible sealing membrane, a decompression means communicating with the decompression chamber, and means for removably fixing the other end having an opening on the bed when the decompression chamber is extended to a predetermined length. and a torso support for preventing a human body from being drawn into a decompression chamber, which is provided in the upper half of the bed. 2. The lower limb decompression device according to claim 1, wherein the central portion of the bed is concave. 3. The lower limb decompression device according to claim 1, wherein the decompression chamber has a bellows shape whose radial direction is held by a ring-shaped reinforcing member. 4. The lower limb decompression device according to claim 3, wherein the end of the bellows is a flange having an opening. 5. The lower limb decompression device according to claim 1, wherein the decompression means includes means for stopping the decompression operation upon detection of suction by a human body suction detection means provided in the upper half of the bed.