Method and apparatus for treating obesity and for delivering time-released medicaments
First Claim
1. A therapeutic structure, comprising:
- a plurality of space-filling portions which are sized to be swalled and received in a stomach of a human patient, and which magnetically come together within the stomach of the patient to form a resulting structure which provides therapeutic benefit to the patient.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method for treating obesity and for delivering time-released medicaments is described and which includes a plurality of space-filling portions which are sized to be received within a human patient'"'"'s body and which come together in a patient'"'"'s body to form a structure which provides therapeutic benefit to the patient. In the method of the present invention, the method includes providing a plurality of space-filling portions which are sized to be received within the patient'"'"'s body; and inserting the space-filling portions into the body of the patient and wherein the respective space-filling portions come together following insertion into the body to form a structure providing therapeutic benefit to the patient.
151 Citations
21 Claims
-
1. A therapeutic structure, comprising:
a plurality of space-filling portions which are sized to be swalled and received in a stomach of a human patient, and which magnetically come together within the stomach of the patient to form a resulting structure which provides therapeutic benefit to the patient. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
-
10. A therapeutic structure, comprising:
a plurality of space-filling portions sized to be swallowed by a patient and received in the patient'"'"'s stomach, and wherein the space-filling portions magnetically comes together in the patient'"'"'s stomach to form a therapeutic structure which displaces a medically effective volume of a patient'"'"'s stomach lumen to cause weight loss in the patient and which further cannot be passed form the stomach. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
-
16. A method of providing therapeutic benefit to a patient, comprising:
-
providing a plurality of space-filling portions which are sized to be received within the patient'"'"'s body; and
inserting the respective space-filling portions into the body of the patient, and wherein the respective space-filling portions magnetically come together following insertion into the body to form a structure providing therapeutic benefit to the patient. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19)
determining the volume of the patient'"'"'s stomach;
calculating the volume of the patient'"'"'s stomach, which if displaced, would provide medically effective weight loss; and
determining the number of respective space-filling portions which will form a resulting structure approximating the volume which, if displaced, would provide medically effective weight loss.
-
-
19. A method as claimed in claim 16, wherein the patient has a passageway, and wherein the space-filling portions come together to form a structure which substantially occludes the passageway of the patient.
-
20. A therapeutic method for providing effective weight loss in a patient, comprising:
-
determining the volume of a patient'"'"'s stomach;
calculating the volume of the patient'"'"'s stomach, which if displaced, would provide medically effective weight loss;
providing individually ingestible space-filling portions which are swallowed by the patient and which are received in the patient'"'"'s stomach, and wherein the individual space-filling portions magnetically come together in the patient'"'"'s stomach to form a resulting structure;
determining the number of respective space-filling portions which will form the resulting structure having a volume which approximates the volume which, if displaced, would provide medically effective weight loss;
ingesting the number of respective space-filling portions to form the resulting structure having the volume which will provide medically effective weight loss; and
after experiencing the medically effective weight loss, and after the step of ingesting the space-filling portions, providing a source of a demagnetizing field from a location outside the patient'"'"'s body and which causes the resulting structure to disassociate from one another into the individual space-filling portions, each of the individual space-filling portions passing out of the patient'"'"'s stomach and body.
-
-
21. A therapeutic structure comprising:
a plurality of space-filling portions which are sized so that they may be individually ingested by a human patient, and which move together, once ingested by the human patient, to form a resulting structure which provides therapeutically effective weight loss.
Specification