Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Sensitivity to impact
Patent
1998-09-24
2000-10-17
Hindenburg, Max
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Sensitivity to impact
A61B 1900
Patent
active
061323853
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to medical diagnostics devices and is intended for repeated non-invasive monitoring of mechanical properties of soft biological tissues. The method and device are used to assess the efficiency of massage procedures and the effect of physiotherapeutic treatment on biological tissues, to assess quantitatively the extent of pathological processes, to determine the genetic characteristics of organs, to monitor the tone of biological tissues undergoing surgical operations, to estimate the condition of soft tissues in accordance with the needs of forensic medicine, including measurements on the scene of accident.
BACKGROUND ART
The reasons for using the mechanical properties of soft biological tissues as a source of information for assessing the functional state of tissues and organs are the following:
The intensity of metabolic processes taking place in biological tissues depends on both the internal and external environmental influences, which bring about changes in the mechanical properties of the tissues.
Physical activity, for example, causes hypertrophy of skeletal muscles, whereas inactivity causes atrophy. As a result of various neurological diseases and traumas the muscular tone undergoes significant changes. The muscular tone is characterized by means of the stiffness and dempferity properties of muscles. The stiffness depends on the intramuscular pressure, whereas the dempferity varies according to elasticity properties of the morphological structures of muscles. The human support-motor system has developed in such a way that the rotation process of a body part round the axis of a joint always has two antagonistic muscle groups involved. The agonists create a torque in relation to the axis of the joint, which is necessary for initiating the motion, while at the same time the agonists are stretched. From the point of view of movement energetics and moving in general it is important what amount of mechanical energy is needed to stretch the antagonists. This mechanical energy in its turn comprises two parts: first, the constraining force which depends on the antagonist's tonicity, the area of its cross-section, and its change in length, and second, the resisting force, caused by the dempferity properties of the antagonist with the same change in length, which depends on the velocity of stretching. On the one hand, the tone of skeletal muscles depends on the intensity of efferent innervation, on the other, on the cellular tone. The co-influence of both can cause an increase in the mechanical tension of the envelopes or facias of the organs. The elasticity of the collagen fibres of muscle envelopes in its turn affects the ability of biological tissues to dissipate mechanical energy.
Thus changes in the mechanical properties of biological tissues can cause traumas or pathological processes. At the same time, data about changes in the mechanical properties of skeletal muscles enable us to estimate the efficiency of surgical operations, physiotherapeutic procedures, massage, rehabilitation gymnastics and drug treatment.
From what was said above we can conclude that the mechanical properties of biological tissues can yield important information about the functional ability of the tissues, thus making it possible to predict the results concurrent with changes in the mechanical properties of biological tissues.
Various devices and methods have been developed for ascertaining the mechanical properties of soft biological tissues.
The common disadvantage of the methods used until now has been that either these methods themselves cause changes to the mechanical properties of the tissue under investigation or the measuring procedure lasts so long that the subject under investigation manages to change the mechanical properties of the tissue voluntarily during the procedure. Take for instance the device for measuring muscular tone which includes two cuffs. Upon one cuff an acceleration transducer is attached, while on the other cuff the mechanical impacts are produced (
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Hindenburg Max
Szmal Brian
University of Tartu
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