BIOLOGICAL SIGNAL MEASURING DEVICE AND BIOLOGICAL STATE ANALYZING SYSTEM

• US 20110251522A1
• Filed: 07/28/2009
• Published: 10/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Delta Tooling Co., Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Delta Tooling Co., Ltd.
• Inventors: Fujita, Etsunori, Maeda, Shinichiro, Kojima, Shigeyuki, Ogura, Yumi
• Granted Patent: US 9,020,705 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/587
• CPC Class Codes: A47C 9/002 with exercising means or having special therapeutic or ergonomic effects
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/024 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse rate or heart rate A61B5/0205, A61B5/021 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6887 mounted on external non-worn devices, e.g. non-medical devices
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7239 using differentiation including higher order derivatives
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms

Abstract

A configuration is adopted where elastic members made of expanded rein beads and having a size covering air cushions are disposed between a skin member and the air cushions of a human body supporting device. By arranging a plurality of elastic members made of expanded rein beads and in a stacking manner, preferably, arranging two elastic members made of expanded resin beads, spring constants of the elastic members obtained from load-deflection characteristics when they are pressed to a deflection amount of 1 mm by a pressing plate with a diameter of 30 mm being higher than that of the air cushion and being different from each other, a biological signal can be transmitted to the air cushions without damping the biological signal, though the elastic members made of expanded rein beads and are provided.

Claims

1. A biological signal measuring device comprising:

an air cushion provided with an airbag and a sensor which detects air pressure fluctuation of the airbag according to load fluctuation, wherein the air cushion is assembled between a skin member and a cushion supporting member arranged on a back face side of the skin member at a site supporting at least the vicinity of a lumber area of a person in human body supporting means, and an output signal of the sensor is transmitted to state analyzing means which analyzes a state of the person,

wherein an elastic member made of expanded resin beads which has a size covering the air cushion is disposed between the skin member and the air cushion.

2. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 1, wherein the elastic member made of expanded resin beads is configured by stacking a first elastic member made of expanded resin beads and a second elastic member made of expanded resin beads to each other, and each of the first elastic member made of expanded resin beads and the second elastic member made of expanded resin beads comprises an expanded bead body and a covering material covering an outer face of the expanded bead body.

3. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 2, wherein the covering material covering the expanded bead body configuring one of the first elastic member made of expanded resin beads and the second elastic member made of expanded resin beads is different in retractility from the covering material covering the expanded bead body configuring the other.

4. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 3, wherein the covering material covering the expanded bead body configuring one of the first elastic member made of expanded resin beads and the second elastic member made of expanded resin beads is an elastic fiber nonwoven fabric formed by melting and bonding thermoplastic elastomer elastic fibers mutually, and the covering material covering the expanded bead body configuring the other is a nonwoven fabric made of thermoplastic polyester small in retractility than the elastic fiber nonwoven fabric.

5. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 4, wherein polyester films are stuck to a surface of the first elastic member made of expanded resin beads and a back face of the second elastic member made of expanded resin beads, respectively.

6. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 1, wherein both spring constants of the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads obtained by load-deflection characteristics when the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads are disposed on the air cushion placed on a measuring stand, respectively, and the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads are pressed to a deflection amount of 1 mm by using a pressing plate with a diameter of 30 mm, respectively, are higher than a spring constant of the air cushion obtained from a load-deflection characteristic when only the air cushion is pressed to a deflection amount of 1 mm by using a pressing plate with a diameter of 30 mm, the spring constant of one of the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads falls within a range of 1.1 to 1.4 times the spring constant of the other, and a spring constant obtained from a load-deflection characteristic when the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads are stacked to each other to be disposed on the air cushion placed on a measuring stand and the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads are pressed to a deflection amount of 1 mm by using a pressing plate with a diameter of 30 mm falls within a range of 0.8 to 1.2 times the spring constant of only the air cushion.

7. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 1, wherein a three-dimensional solid knitted fabric is disposed within an airbag of the air cushion.

8. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the air cushion comprises a plurality of small airbags having a predetermined length and connected to one another in their length directions, where air is prevented from flowing between adjacent ones of the small airbags, and three-dimensional solid knitted fabrics disposed in the respective small airbags, and air pressure fluctuation of any of the small airbags is measured.

9. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 7, wherein the air cushion has a predetermined length and is configured such that at least two air cushions are stacked for use, a surface side air cushion of the at least two air cushions which is disposed on the side of the skin member of the human body supporting means comprises a plurality of small airbags connected to one another in their length directions, where air is prevented from flowing between adjacent ones of the small airbags, and three-dimensional solid knitted fabrics disposed in the respective small airbags, and air pressure fluctuation of any of the small airbags is measured.

10. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 8, wherein the small airbag which measures the air pressure fluctuation is a small airbag of the plurality of small airbags which is positioned in an area where pulse waves of an aorta of a dorsal region of the person can be detected.

11. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 8, wherein the human body supporting means is a seat provided with a seat cushion section and a seatback section, the air cushion is disposed along a vertical direction of the seatback section, and the small airbag which measures the air pressure fluctuation has a width of 40 to 100 mm and a length of 120 to 200 mm and is provided such that an intersecting portion of one of side edges thereof positioned nearer to the center of the seatback section of the small airbag and a lower edge thereof is set to fall in a length range of 150 to 280 mm from an upper face of the seat cushion section along a surface of the seatback section and fall in a range of 60 to 120 mm from the center of the seatback section.

12. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 11, wherein the air cushion is configured such that two air cushions are provided at bilaterally symmetric positions regarding the center of the seatback section, and air pressure fluctuation of a small airbag in one of the two air cushions is measured.

13. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 12, wherein the respective air cushions have a width of 40 to 100 mm and an entire length of 400 to 600 mm, and

the respective air cushions are received in cushion receiving portions of a receiving body provided with a connection portion with a width of 60 to 120 mm and the cushion receiving portions provided on both sides of the connection portion, resulting in unitization.

14. The biological signal measuring device according to claim 12, wherein widths of the first and second elastic members made of expanded resin beads are equal to or longer than a length between top portions of the two air cushions.

15. A biological state analyzing system comprising the biological signal measuring device according to claim 1;

and

state analyzing means for analyzing a state of a person supported by the human body supporting means from an output signal of the sensor which detects air pressure fluctuation of the air cushion in the biological signal measuring device.

16. The biological state analyzing system according to claim 15, wherein the state analyzing means comprises:

power value slope calculating means which calculates a difference between an upper limit side peak value and a lower limit side peak value for each predetermined time range from peak values of each cycle of a time series waveform of an output signal obtained by the sensor in the biological signal measuring device, and utilizes the difference as a power value to obtain time series data of the power value and performs slide calculation by a predetermined number of times to obtain a slope of the power value to a time axis in the predetermined time range;

maximum Liapunov index slope calculating means which obtains time series data of a maximum Liapunov index from the time series waveform of the output signal obtained by the sensor in the biological signal measuring device and performs slide calculation by a predetermined number of times to obtain a slope of the maximum Liapunov index to the time axis in the predetermined time range; and

sleep onset prediction determining means which, when respective two slope time series waveforms obtained from the power value slope calculating means and the maximum Liapunov index slope calculating means are superimposed on each other, determines portions of the two slope time series waveforms which have opposite phases to each other as a sleep onset prediction signal.

17. The biological state analyzing system according to claim 16, wherein the state analyzing means further comprises differentiated waveform calculating means which differentiates the time series waveform of the output signal obtained from the sensor in the biological signal measuring device to obtain a differentiated waveform, and the power value slope calculating means and the maximum Liapunov index slope calculating means calculate a power value slope and a maximum Liapunov index slope from the differentiated waveform obtained from the differentiated waveform calculating means.

18. The biological state analyzing system according to claim 17, wherein the state analyzing means further comprises slope time series differentiated waveform calculating means which differentiates a time series waveform of the power value slope obtained by the power value slope calculating means and a time series waveform of the maximum Liapunov index slope obtained by the maximum Liapunov index slope calculating means to obtain differentiated waveforms of the respective slope time series waveforms.