MONITORING, ANALYSIS, AND REGULATION OF EATING HABITS

• US 20090118797A1
• Filed: 08/18/2005
• Published: 05/07/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tylerton International Inc.
• Original Assignee: MetaCure Limited (MetaCure (USA), Inc.)
• Inventors: Aviv, Ricardo, Kliger, Anat, Policker, Shai
• Granted Patent: US 8,612,016 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 607/62
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/36007 of urogenital or gastrointestinal organs, e.g. for incontinence control

Abstract

Gastric apparatus (18) is provided, including one or more sensors (70, 72, 74), adapted to generate respective sensor signals responsive to activity of a gastrointestinal tract of a subject. A control unit (90) is adapted to receive and analyze the sensor signals and to determine that an eating event has occurred, responsive to at least one of the sensor signals and a threshold. The control unit identifies an aspect of at least one of the sensor signals deriving from rhythmic activity of the gastrointestinal tract that is not indicative of current eating by the subject, and modifies the threshold responsive to the aspect of the signals that derives from activity that is not indicative of current eating. For some applications, the control unit is adapted to modify the threshold if the aspect is indicative of a migrating motor complex (MMC). Other embodiments are also described.

Claims

1. Gastric apparatus, comprising:

one or more sensors, adapted to generate respective sensor signals responsive to activity of a gastrointestinal tract of a subject; and

a control unit, adapted to;

receive and analyze the sensor signals,

determine that an eating event has occurred, responsive to at least one of the sensor signals and a threshold,

identify an aspect of at least one of the sensor signals deriving from rhythmic activity of the gastrointestinal tract that is not indicative of current eating by the subject, and

modify the threshold responsive to the aspect of the signals that derives from activity that is not indicative of current eating.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is adapted to modify the threshold if the aspect is indicative of a migrating motor complex (MMC).

3. The apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein in modifying the threshold, the control unit is adapted to modify the threshold in a threshold-modification direction, and

wherein the control unit is adapted, at a later time at least 30 minutes following modifying the threshold, to further modify the threshold in the threshold-modification direction responsive to identifying at the later time the aspect of the signals deriving from activity that is not indicative of current eating by the subject.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is adapted, at a later time at least 30 minutes following modifying the threshold, to at least partially restore the threshold towards a previous value thereof, responsive to not identifying at the later time the aspect of the signals deriving from activity that is not indicative of current eating by the subject.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is adapted to modify the threshold responsive to a relationship between a previous portion of the sensor signals and a current portion of the sensor signals.

6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the control unit is adapted to modify the threshold responsive to the relationship, the previous portion being between 30 and 50 minutes prior to the current portion.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the control unit is adapted to identify the previous portion of the sensor signals as being indicative of a migrating motor complex (MMC) and to identify the current portion of the sensor signals as being indicative of a MMC, and to modify the threshold responsive to identifying the previous and current portions as being indicative of the MMC.

8. Apparatus, comprising:

a sensor, adapted to generate a signal responsive to antral electrical activity of a subject; and

a vagus nerve stimulator, adapted to receive the signal and, responsive thereto, to stimulate a vagus nerve of the subject in temporal coordination with an aspect of the sensed signal.

9. A selection method, comprising:

recording a signal indicative of slow wave activity of a patient; and

identifying the patient as a candidate for implantation of a medical device responsive to a rate of the slow wave activity of the patient being greater than a threshold rate.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein recording the signal comprises non-invasively recording a fasting electrogastrogram of the patient.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein the threshold rate is at least 2.9 cycles per minute.

12. The method according to claim 9, wherein identifying the patient comprises identifying the patient as a candidate for implantation of a device capable of applying an ETC signal, responsive to the rate of slow wave activity being greater than the threshold rate.

13. The method according to claim 9, comprising rejecting the patient as a candidate for implantation of the medical device responsive to the rate of slow wave activity being less than 2.9 cycles per minute.