Surgery – Sleep or relaxation inducing therapy – Sensory
Patent
1998-06-22
2000-08-15
Lacyk, John P.
Surgery
Sleep or relaxation inducing therapy
Sensory
A61M 2100
Patent
active
061028479
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
The invention relates to a biofeedback process and a device for implementing the biofeedback process.
Nowadays people are suffering more and more from psychological strains which are caused for example through increased professional and private demands. These psychological strains are also called `stress`. It is a generally known fact that the capability of a person is impaired when under the influence of stress. However other psychologically conditioned disorders such as for example difficulty in learning to read and write are also occurring more frequently nowadays.
For this reason processes and devices are required which act on the human psyche and thus help to break down stress or to generally improve performance and capability.
From DE 94 05 523.8 U1 a biofeedback device is known for learning or re-learning muscle activities or for relaxing muscles. Measured values are thereby derived from the electrical activity of the forehead muscles of a person. This has the disadvantage that the relaxation state of a person can only be measured from the forehead muscles. More particularly the eye area which is particularly useful in judging the tension or stressed state of a person is not detected since muscles in the eye area operate independently of the forehead muscles.
From DE 35 46 052 A1 a process and device are known through which the capacity of a person can be increased through the effect of music. The musical rhythm is thereby changed until it is in a harmonic (i.e. whole-numbered) ratio with the heart rhythm of the person. The drawback here is that both the rhythm of the heart and the rhythm of the music have to be monitored which requires a considerable apparatus expense. Also the adjustment of a harmonic ratio between the heart and music rhythms can be difficult since both rhythms are constantly changing.
DE 43 07 790 A1 discloses an apparatus for carrying out various psychotherapeutic methods. A person thereby lies in a relaxed state on a type of couch whereby the person is covered by a cover through which individual parts of the body can be targeted and brought to the right temperature. The couch contains sensors for measuring the skin temperature and the pulse rate and the measured results are sent to a computer-assisted control device. An evaluation of the relaxation state of the person is obtained from the measurements.
From DE 42 34 926 A1 a relaxation device is known where light and sound signals act on a person. In particular this apparatus is characterized in that the phases of the optical and acoustic signals are coupled with each other. Such a coupling is produced for example through matching the light signals to the basic rhythm of the music which is transferred to the patient. With this apparatus there is the drawback that no feedback exists so that the action on the person is carried out regardless of the momentary psychological tension state of the person.
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,347 a biofeedback device is known with sensors which receive reflections of a ray of light-emitting diode directed to the eye. Each movement of the eyes thereby causes a change in the output signal of the sensors. If the eye movement exceeds a predefined threshold value then an acoustic or tactile signal is produced. The signal is thereby produced until the eye movement is minimized so far that it lies below the predefined threshold value. If the eye movement lies below the predefined threshold value then no acoustic or tactile signal is produced.
Based on this prior art the object of the present invention is to provide a biofeedback process for producing acoustic and/or optical signals for relaxation purposes and a device for implementing the process which allows a continuous affect on the psyche of a person in targeted manner wherein the psychological state of the person can be measured easily and reliably in the immediate vicinity of the eyes. Furthermore no great apparatus expense is to be necessary for carrying out the measurements and influencing measures and these influencing measures can
REFERENCES:
patent: 3967616 (1976-07-01), Ross
patent: 4456347 (1984-06-01), Stahly
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