LU101900B1

LU101900B1 - Electrical acupoint stimulation method and apparatus for pain adjuvant therapy

Info

Publication number: LU101900B1
Application number: LU101900A
Authority: LU
Inventors: Fang Jianqiao
Original assignee: Univ Zhejiang Chinese Medical
Priority date: 2020-07-06
Filing date: 2020-07-06
Publication date: 2021-02-04

Abstract

The present invention discloses an electrical acupoint stimulation method and apparatus for pain adjuvant therapy. The method realises analgesia for pain by means of outputting a bidirectional symmetrical rectangular pulse current with a frequency of 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400µs, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100µs, and a sparse wave and a dense wave separately last for 3 seconds. The apparatus for realising the method comprises a pulse generator and an electrode. The present invention may obviously improve secretion of central endogenous enkephalins and ?-endorphinins, inhibit production of peripheral IL-1?, and play a role in anti-inflammation and analgesia, is beneficial to relieving the pain, provides intelligent operation for a patient to independently use an instrument to relieve the pain, and may improve living quality of the pain-suffered patient.

Description

ELECTRICAL ACUPOINT STIMULATION METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PAIN ADJUVANT THERAPY FIELD

[0001] The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for analgesia, in particular to an electrical acupoint stimulation method and apparatus for pain adjuvant therapy.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Pain is a complicated subjective sensation caused by noxious stimulation, like a “double-edged sword”, on one hand, the pain may provide an alarm signal when a human body is threatened, and prevent tissue from being injured by prompting behavior and reflex defence, thereby being an indispensable protective function of the human body, and on the other hand, severe or long-term pain causes physiological dysfunction and psychological discomfort of the human body, which is a major clinical problem. Inflammatory pain is a type of the most common clinical pain, various arthritis, gout, rheumatoid arthritis and the like all belong to the inflammatory pain, and it may be said that as long as there is inflammation, there is the “inflammatory pain.” Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as commonly used Voltaren and Fenbid, are a gold standard in therapy for the inflammatory pain, but the drugs certainly cause serious gastrointestinal injury for a patient, and long-term use of painkillers causes huge economic pressure and serious physical injury for the patient, even major side effects such as alimentary tract hemorrhage, which may endanger life. Hence, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs targeting a single target spot may not solve the clinical problems. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation analgesia has been used abroad for more than half a century. Chinese scientists have 1 combined it with meridian acupoints of traditional Chinese medicine together to HU107900 invent “transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation” with a good analgesic effect. Transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation has an obvious therapeutic effect on local pain, systemic pain, visceral pain and the like, has the advantages of being rapid in onset, wide in disease spectrum, good in overall adjustment effect, less in side effects and the like, and can be used for therapy of various acute and chronic pain. This multi-targeting therapy has become recognized main green analgesic means at home and abroad, and is a typical representative of “green analgesia.” By outputting a specific pulse wave, the apparatus of the present invention can well solve these problems; and in combination with acupoint theory in the traditional Chinese medicine, the apparatus mobilizes an endogenous opioid peptide mechanism of the human body to generate an analgesic effect by electrically stimulating acupoints, and inhibits secretion of inflammatory substances in the human body, and therefore the apparatus is an analgesic health care instrument which is safe and free of toxic and side effects and can be used for a long term.

SUMMARY

[0003] An object of the present invention is to overcome shortcomings that existing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are poor in therapeutic effect, serious in side effects and the like, and defects that existing electrical stimulators are inaccurate in therapeutic effect, and most of the electrical stimulators have not been strictly and scientifically researched and demonstrated yet, thereby providing an electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus and an electrical acupoint stimulation method which are used for a non-therapeutic purpose, combine a modern electronic technology with an acupuncture theory of traditional Chinese medicine, and perform adjuvant analgesia on pain.

[0004] The object of the present invention is realised by the following technical solution: the electrical acupoint stimulation method for pain adjuvant therapy adopts a sparse wave and a dense wave for electrical stimulation, a current of the sparse wave 2 and the dense wave is 0.1 mA to 50 mA, and a voltage of the sparse wave and the HU107900 dense wave is 0.1 V to 4 V; and a frequency of a current pulse is 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 us, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 us, and the sparse wave and the dense wave separately last for 3 seconds.

[0005] The electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus for pain adjuvant therapy comprises a pulse generator and an electrode, wherein the pulse generator performs electrical stimulation on acupoints through the electrode; a pulse signal sent by the pulse generator comprises a sparse wave and a dense wave, a current for the sparse wave and the dense wave is 0.1 mA to 50 mA, and a voltage for the sparse wave and the dense wave is 0.1 V to 4V; and a frequency of a current pulse is 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 us, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 us, and the sparse wave and the dense wave separately last for 3 seconds.

[0006] Furthermore, the electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus further comprises a liquid crystal display, wherein the liquid crystal display is connected to the pulse generator and displays the current working frequency, the wave width and remaining working time.

[0007] Furthermore, the apparatus further comprises a key group and a single-chip microcomputer, wherein the key group is connected to the pulse generator through the single-chip microcomputer, the key group comprises a current increasing key and a current decreasing key to adjust the stimulation current, and an adjustment step size is 1 mA.

[0008] Furthermore, the apparatus further comprises a key group and a single-chip microcomputer, wherein the key group is connected to the pulse generator through the single-chip microcomputer, and the key group comprises a timing button for setting electrical stimulation time.

[0009] The beneficial effects of the present invention lie in that the present invention is based on a gate control theory and an endogenous opioid peptide mechanism, indeed has anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects confirmed by experiments, and can obviously improve central endogenous opioid analgesic substances and inhibit peripheral pro-inflammatory factors. It is confirmed by 3 research that the present invention can promote secretion of hypothalamic HU107900 B-endorphins and spinal cord enkephalins, and inhibit production of the pro-inflammatory factors such as peripheral IL-1P, is beneficial to relief from pain of a patient, reduces application of analgesic drugs by the patient, provides intelligent operation for the patient to independently use an instrument to relieve the pain, and can improve living quality of the pain-suffered patient.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010] FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus;

[0011] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of assembly connection of the electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus;

[0012] FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of assembly connection of the electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus;

[0013] FIG. 4 is a comparison of pain thresholds of CFA rats under electrical stimulation with different frequencies;

[0014] FIG 5 is a comparison of hypothalamic B-endorphin contents of the CFA rats under electrical pulse stimulation with different frequencies;

[0015] FIG. 6 is a comparison of hypothalamic enkephalin contents of the CFA rats under electrical pulse stimulation with different frequencies; and

[0016] FIG 7 is a comparison of IL-1ß contents of vola pedis of the CFA rats under electrical pulse stimulation with different frequencies.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

[0017] The present invention is further described with reference to accompanying drawings below.

[0018] The present invention provides an electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus and an electrical acupoint stimulation method for adjuvant analgesia, which are used 4 for a non-therapeutic purpose and combine a modern electronic technology with an HU107900 acupuncture theory of traditional Chinese medicine. A large number of experiments prove that the special electrical pulse stimulation method has a good effect on pain, and is mainly characterized in that a frequency of a bidirectional symmetrical rectangular current pulse is 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 ps, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 ps, and a sparse wave and a dense wave separately last for 3 seconds. It has been proved in the rat experiments that the above-mentioned electrical acupoint stimulation method improves an analgesic effect on pain and is superior to other similar instruments in the market at present. Details are as follows:

[0019] SD rats are adopted and a Complete freund’s adjuvant (CFA) is hypodermically injected into rear vola pedis to induce classic chronic inflammatory pain models, 42 rats are randomly divided into 7 groups: a normal group, a model group, a 2 Hz electrical stimulation group, a 100 Hz electrical stimulation group, a 120 Hz electrical stimulation group, a 2/100 Hz electrical stimulation group, and a 2/120 Hz electrical stimulation group; pulse electrical wave widths are set as follows: when a frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 us, when a frequency is 100 Hz, a wave width is 200 us, and when a frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 us; and a sparse wave and a dense wave separately last for 3 seconds, and a current is 1 mA. A Zusanli acupoint and a Kunlun acupoint are selected for 30-min therapy each time. After 9-day electrical stimulation therapy, mechanical pain thresholds of the rats are detected, and through statistical analysis, results show that the 2/120 Hz group has the best analgesic effect (both P<0.05) on the seventh and ninth days. The results shown refer to FIG. 4 and Table 1.

[0020] Table 1: Comparison of pain thresholds of CFA rats under electrical stimulation with different frequencies

(unit: g) operation stimulation | stimulation | stimulation | stimulation| stimulation LU101900 (unit: g) (unit: g) (unit: g) (unit: g) (unit: g) (unit: g) Normal

56.48+0.57 | 55.16+1.22 | 5541+0.55 | 55.49+0.81 | 55.08+0.73 | 55.42+1.27 | 55.86+1.31 group Model

56.02+0.62 | 36.16+0.66 34.49+0.46 | 35.47+0.98 | 35.10+0.62 | 36.13+0.69 | 35.56+0.64 group 2 Hz electrical

56.11+0.54 | 35.33+0.93 | 38.07+0.88 | 42.39+1.67 | 44.5032 | 46.35+1.05 | 47.14+0.56 stimulation group 100 Hz electrical

56.28+0.51 | 35.21+0.97 | 42.85+0.82 | 43.21+0.88 | 46.62+1.53 | 47.2+1.41 | 50.45+0.95 stimulation group 120 Hz electrical

56.71+0.62 | 35.56+1.06 | 42.75+0.69 | 42.71+2.29 | 46.99+1.22 | 47.82+1.4 | 50.59+0.97 stimulation group 2/100 Hz electrical

56.38+0.25 | 35.39+1.11 | 43.49+0.54 | 46.49+1.61 | 46.55+1.09 | 51.9+0.48 | 52.35+0.67 stimulation group 2/120 Hz electrical

56.54+0.89 | 35.61+0.76 | 43.66+0.91 | 43.25+1.16 | 47.12+1.12 | 53.59+1.21 | 54.06+0.7 stimulation group

[0022] Furthermore, after 9-day electrical stimulation therapy, the rats are killed, contents of hypothalamic B-endorphins, enkephalins and IL-1B of the vola pedis of the rats are detected, and results show that the above five kinds of electrical pulse stimulation therapy can obviously increase the contents of the hypothalamic B-endorphins and the enkephalins of the inflammatory pain-suffered rats and inhibit the contents of the IL-1B of the vola pedis, such that the electrical stimulation therapy has statistical significance (P<0.05) compared with the model group. The results shown refer to FIG. 5 to FIG. 7 and Table 5.

[0023] Table 5: Influence on related indexes of CFA rats under electrical stimulation therapy with different frequencies

[0024] 6 oe | | em on | || 0 | sn 5 Normal Indexes Model group 2 Hz 100 Hz 120 Hz 2/100 Hz 2/120 Hz group -endorph Prendorp 2.9420.3 10.33#2.1 in (unit: | 3.2740.24 | 9.8142.15 8 8.11+1.27 | 10.05+2.13 | 13.54+42.07 pg/mg) enkephali

7.99+0.7 12.25+0.5 n (unit: | 6.38+0.46 5 8.56+0.89 | 9.0741.18 | 9.13+0.89 | 9.42+1.95 pg/mg) IL-1 Coit 790.82+51| 1244.99+68. | 907.9467. | 833.7499. | 977.37x116. | 836.8149. | 734.34+125. unit: 09 99 22 53 77 38 pg/ml)

[0025] Based on the above electrical stimulation method, the present invention further provides the electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus, comprising a pulse generator and an electrode, and the pulse generator performs electrical stimulation on acupoints through the electrode; the pulse generator comprises a key group, an output electrical pulse signal is selected through the key group, a current of the electrical pulse signal is 0.1 mA to 50 mA, and a voltage of the electrical pulse signal is 0.1 V to 4V; a frequency of a bidirectional symmetrical rectangular current pulse is 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 us, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 us, and a sparse wave and a dense wave separately last for 3 seconds.

[0026] As common general knowledge in the art, the pulse generator generally comprises a single-chip microcomputer system and a constant current output circuit. The single-chip microcomputer system is a control core of the whole system, and may adopt an STC industrial microcontroller, the control system works according to normal requirements to control output of different pulse signals, the pulse signals may be adjusted through the key group, and the constant current output circuit is as shown in FIG. 3. The high-precision constant current source circuit may realise voltage control from 0 V to 4 V and current output from 0 mA to 50 mA and adopts a high-reliability operational amplifier OPA211 as a constant current source output drive. An MOS transistor is especially suitable to be applied in the constant current source output circuit due to a low impedance characteristic, and the whole system is 7 driven by the source amplifier, such that temperature drift under long-time working is HU107900 small, and output is stable. Compared with a traditional circuit using a triode for output, the constant current source output circuit is higher in stability and precision.

[0027] The above-mentioned apparatus may further comprise a liquid crystal display, wherein the liquid crystal display is connected to the pulse generator to display the current working frequency, the wave width, and remaining working time.

[0028] The key group may be set to output the bidirectional symmetrical rectangular current pulses with the frequency of 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, the wave width is 400 us, when the frequency is 120 Hz, the wave width is 100 us, and the sparse wave and the dense wave separately last for 3 seconds. The apparatus may further comprise a current increasing key and a current decreasing key to adjust the stimulation current, and an adjustment step size is 1 mA. The apparatus further comprises a timing button for setting electrical stimulation time.

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Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1. An electrical acupoint stimulation method for pain adjuvant therapy, characterized in that, the method adopts a sparse wave and a dense wave for electrical stimulation, wherein a current of the sparse wave and the dense wave is 0.1 mA to 50 mA, and a voltage of the sparse wave and the dense wave is 0.1 V to 4 V; and a frequency of a current pulse is 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 ps, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 us, and the sparse wave and the dense wave separately last for 3 seconds.

2. An electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus for pain adjuvant therapy, characterized in that, the apparatus comprises a pulse generator and an electrode, wherein the pulse generator performs electrical stimulation on acupoints through the electrode; a pulse signal sent by the pulse generator comprises a sparse wave and a dense wave, a current of the sparse wave and the dense wave is 0.1 mA to 50 mA, and a voltage of the sparse wave and the dense wave is 0.1 V to 4V; and a frequency of a current pulse is 2/120 Hz, when the frequency is 2 Hz, a wave width is 400 us, when the frequency is 120 Hz, a wave width is 100 ps, and the sparse wave and the dense wave separately last for 3 seconds.

3. The electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus according to claim 2, characterized in that, the apparatus may further comprise a liquid crystal display, wherein the liquid crystal display is connected to the pulse generator, and displays the current working frequency, the wave width and remaining working time.

4. The electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus according to claim 2, characterized in that, the apparatus may further comprise a key group and a 1 single-chip microcomputer, wherein the key group is connected to the pulse generator HU107900 through the single-chip microcomputer, the key group comprises a current increasing key and a current decreasing key to adjust the stimulation current, and an adjustment step size is 1 mA.

5. The electrical acupoint stimulation apparatus according to claim 2, characterized in that, the apparatus may further comprise a key group and a single-chip microcomputer, wherein the key group is connected to the pulse generator through the single-chip microcomputer, and the key group comprises a timing button for setting electrical stimulation time.

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