Apparatus for treating a patient

• US 9,037,224 B1
• Filed: 08/02/2010
• Issued: 05/19/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Chi Yung Fu
• Original Assignee: Chi Yung Fu
• Inventors: Fu, Chi Yung
• Primary Examiner(s): Koharski, Christopher D
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kimball, Jeremiah
• Application Number:
  US12/804,936
• Time in Patent Office: 1,751 Days
• Field of Search: 607/45, 600/544
• US Class Current: 600/544
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0036 including treatment, e.g., using an implantable medical device, ablating, ventilating
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/369 Electroencephalography [EEG] devices for psychotechnics A61B5/16
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/389 Electromyography [EMG]
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4082 Diagnosing or monitoring movement diseases, e.g. Parkinson, Huntington or Tourette
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4088 Diagnosing of monitoring cognitive diseases, e.g. Alzheimer, prion diseases or dementia
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4094 Diagnosing or monitoring seizure diseases, e.g. epilepsy
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4839 combined with drug delivery
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7203 for noise prevention, reduction or removal
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7214 using signal cancellation, e.g. based on input of two identical physiological sensors spaced apart, or based on two signals derived from the same sensor, for different optical wavelengths
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7246 using correlation, e.g. template matching or determination of similarity
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/726 using Wavelet transforms
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7264 Classification of physiological signals or data, e.g. using neural networks, statistical classifiers, expert systems or fuzzy systems neural networks per se G06N3/00; expert systems per se G06N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 2007/0094 using a remote control
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 7/00 Heating or cooling appliances for medical or therapeutic treatment of the human body heating or cooling means in connection with bedsteads or mattresses A47C21/00 ; massage, therapeutic baths A61H; hyperthermia using electric or magnetic fields or ultrasound A61N; electric heating elements H05B
• CPC Class Codes: A61F 7/007 characterised by electric heating
• CPC Class Codes: A61M 5/1723 using feedback of body parameters, e.g. blood-sugar, pressure measurement of body parameters A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/0408 Use-related aspects
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/0456 Specially adapted for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation [TENS]
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/0476 Array electrodes (including any electrode arrangement with more than one electrode for at least one of the polarities)
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/0526 Head electrodes A61N1/0551 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/303 : Constructional details electrodes for external use A61N1/0428
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/36025 : for treating a mental or cerebral condition
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/36031 : using physiological parameters for adjustment
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2/006 : for magnetic stimulation of nerve tissue
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2/008 : for pain treatment or analgesia
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 2/02 : using magnetic fields produced by coils, including single turn loops or electromagnets A61N2/12 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/015 : Input arrangements based on nervous system activity detection, e.g. brain waves [EEG] detection, electromyograms [EMG] detection, electrodermal response detection
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 : for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems

Abstract

A signal processing method and system combines multi-scale decomposition, such as wavelet, pre-processing together with a compression technique, such as an auto-associative artificial neural network, operating in the multi-scale decomposition domain for signal denoising and extraction. All compressions are performed in the decomposed domain. A reverse decomposition such as an inverse discrete wavelet transform is performed on the combined outputs from all the compression modules to recover a clean signal back in the time domain. A low-cost, non-drug, non-invasive, on-demand therapy braincap system and method are pharmaceutically non-intrusive to the body for the purpose of disease diagnosis, treatment therapy, and direct mind control of external devices and systems. It is based on recognizing abnormal brainwave signatures and intervenes at the earliest moment, using magnetic and/or electric stimulations to reset the brainwaves back to normality. The feedback system is self-regulatory and the treatment stops when the brainwaves return to normal. The braincap contains multiple sensing electrodes and microcoils; the microcoils are pairs of crossed microcoils or 3-axis triple crossed microcoils.

Claims

1. An apparatus for treating a patient for certain neurological and mental disorders, comprising:

a signal measurement module for measuring brainwave signals from the patient, the signals being corrupted with noise;

a signal cleanup module for processing the measured brainwave signals to obtain clean brainwave signals;

a signal matching module for matching the clean brainwave signals to a database of brainwave signals for neurological/mental conditions to identify the patient'"'"'s mental status; and

a therapy signal application module for applying therapeutic treatment to the patient based on the identified condition;

wherein the signal cleanup module comprises;

a signal transformer for iteratively decomposing a signal into a plurality of decomposition wavelet components of different scale, a number of which are selected for further processing;

one or more auto-associative neural network, each of the one or more auto-associative neural network corresponding to one of selected wavelet components, each auto-associative neural network operatively coupled to the signal transformer to receive a corresponding one of the selected wavelet components to squeeze out noise in the decomposed domain from a corresponding one of the selected wavelet components, wherein the auto-associative neural network is self-supervised and has been trained by creating an output behavior that closely matches a noisy input behavior by adjusting synaptic weights between an input layer and an output layer of the auto-associative neural network, and the auto-associative neural network has an equal number of input neurons and output neurons in the input and output layers and has fewer hidden layer neurons than input layer neurons; and

an inverse signal transformer for recovering a clean signal in the time domain from the combined outputs of the at least one auto-associative neural network.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the signal transformer is a wavelet transformer and the inverse signal transformer is an inverse wavelet transformer.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the wavelet transformer is a discrete wavelet transformer and the inverse wavelet transformer is an inverse discrete wavelet transformer.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the signal measurement module comprises a plurality of brain sensors and the therapy signal application module comprises a plurality of brain stimulation devices.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 further comprising a head cap on which the brain sensors and brain stimulation devices are mounted.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the database is a database of brainwave signals for PTSD, depression, pain, epilepsy, ADHD, autistic spectrum disorders, Parkinson'"'"'s disease, or Alzheimer'"'"'s disease.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the brain stimulation devices comprise microcoils.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein the microcoils comprise a plurality of pairs of cross-coupled microcoils or a plurality of 3-axis triple microcoils mounted in the cap.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein each pair of cross-coupled microcoils comprises a pair of independently controlled orthogonal microcoils and each 3-axis triple microcoil comprises three independently controlled orthogonal microcoils.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising a microcoil driver operatively connected to each microcoil of each pair of microcoils or triple microcoil to controllably apply current to each microcoil of the pair or triple to produce a magnetic field in a desired direction.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the microcoil driver controllably applies current to each microcoil of the pair or triple to produce a rotating magnetic field.

12. The apparatus of claim 7 further comprising a microcoil driver operatively connected to each microcoil to actuate a selected pattern of microcoils.

13. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising a microcoil driver operatively connected to each microcoil to control intensity, phase, duty cycle, waveform, and pulsing frequency of current applied to each microcoil.

14. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the brain sensors are microelectrodes and the brain stimulation devices are microcoils.

15. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the brain sensors are microelectrodes and the brain stimulation devices are microcoils.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the microcoils are pairs of crossed helical solenoidal microcoils.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the microcoils are 3-axis triple helical solenoidal microcoils.

18. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising a pair of intersecting multi-turn coils around the head of the patient, one oriented substantially horizontally around the head at the forehead area and the other positioned substantially vertically to encircle the head from the top to just below the chin.

19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the synaptic weights between the input layer and the output layer include synaptic weights between the input layer and a hidden layer and synaptic weights between the hidden layer and an output layer.

20. An apparatus for treating a patient for certain neurological and mental disorders, comprising:

means for measuring brainwave signals from the patient, the signals being corrupted with noise;

means for processing the measured brainwave signals to obtain clean brainwave signals;

means for matching the clean brainwave signals to a database of brainwave signals for neurological/mental conditions to identify the patient'"'"'s mental status; and

means for applying therapeutic treatment to the patient based on the identified condition;

wherein the means for processing the measured brainwave signals comprises;

a signal transformer for iteratively decomposing a signal into a plurality of decomposition wavelet components of different scale, a number of which are selected for further processing;

one or more auto-associative neural network, each of the one or more auto-associative neural network corresponding to one of selected wavelet components, each auto-associative neural network operatively coupled to the signal transformer to receive a corresponding one of the selected wavelet components to squeeze out noise in the decomposed domain from a corresponding one of the selected wavelet components, wherein the auto-associative neural network is self-supervised and has been trained by creating an output behavior that closely matches a noisy input behavior by adjusting synaptic weights between an input layer and an output layer of the auto-associative neural network, and the auto-associative neural network has an equal number of input neurons and output neurons in the input and output layers; and

an inverse signal transformer for recovering a clean signal in the time domain from the combined outputs of the at least one auto-associative neural network.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the synaptic weights between the input layer and the output layer include synaptic weights between the input layer and a hidden layer and synaptic weights between the hidden layer and an output layer.