• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2003.11c
• /
• pp.349-352
• /
• 2003

A personal low-frequency stimulator is a portable device to relax muscle pains of a person. The stimulator generates combined low-frequency pulses to be applied to pads attached to painful muscles. This paper reports a development of such device with its characteristic analyses. The major components of our stimulator are MCU, high-voltage generating circuit part, high-voltage switching circuit part, input switch part and display unit. High-voltage generating circuit is designed by using a boost converter circuit and allows user control of the output voltage. High-voltage switching circuit, controlled by MCU, generates output voltage to be applied to pads. Input switch part is composed of power supply, intensity selection, mode selection and memory. Display unit adopts a text LCD module to display modes, Intensity, output frequency and user set-up time. Our designed safety circuit, to protect human body from possible electric shock, slowly increases the output voltage to the selected output intensity. It continuously checks the output pulse shape and disable the output when dangerous pulses are detected. This paper also shows some experimental results.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.181-187
• /
• 2019

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the activity of respiratory muscle and lung capacity during deep breathing with electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve. Methods: This study was conducted on 30 healthy adults in their 20s. Subjects were randomly performed to deep breathing or deep breathing with vagus nerve electrical stimulation. All subjects' diaphragm and internal oblique muscle activity were measured during deep breathing by electromyography, and lung capacity was measured by spirometry immediately after beep breathing. In the vagus nerve stimulation method, the surface electrode was cut into the left ear and then electrically stimulated using a needle electric stimulator. Results: The activity of diaphragm was significantly increased in deep breathing with vagus nerve electrical stimulation than in deep breathing. However, lung capacity did not show any significant difference according to the condition. Conclusion: Vagus nerve electrical stimulation could induce diaphragm activity more than deep breathing alone. Deep breathing with vagus nerve electrical stimulation may enhance the activity of the respiratory muscles and is expected to be an effective treatment for the elderly or COPD patients with poor breathing ability.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.85-90
• /
• 2013

Core muscle is the most crucial for rehabilitation of patients with musculoskeletal and nervous problem, there is pain, imbalance and functional movement disorder of upper and lower extremities. In this study, low-frequency electrical stimulator was developed for the purpose increasing the activity of rectus abdominis (RA) and the thickness of transverse abdominis (TrA), internal obliquus abdominis (IO), and external obliquus abdominis (EO). Fifteen female in their 20's was divided into a experiment groups (traditional electrical stimulation group, developed electrical stimulation group) and control group. Low-frequency electrical stimulation was performed in experimental groups for 4 times a week, 4 weeks. The muscle activities (RA) by EMG and muscle thickness (TrA, IO, EO) by Ultrasonogrphy imaging were measured, respectively. In the result, the muscle activity of RA and muscle thickness of TrA and EO were significantly increased at developed electrical stimulation group (p<.05). Therefore, the developed low-frequency electrical stimulation is useful for rehabilitation with CNS and PNS subjects.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.83-92
• /
• 2014

Objectives To evaluate the clinical usefulness between muscle energy techniques (MET) and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator (TENS), we performed both on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients. Methods After performing MET and TENS, we compared both in terms of electrical activity. We performed MET or TENS on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients in each group (n=15,15). After performing MET or TENS, we analyzed root mean square (RMS), median edge frequency (MEF) and asymmetry index (AI). Results 1. After performing MET on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients, RMS was significantly decreased compared with before (p<0.005). 2. After performing TENS on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients, RMS was significantly decreased compared with before (p<0.005). 3. After performing MET on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients, asymmetric index was significantly decreased compared with before (p<0.05). Conclusions According to above results, performing MET on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients has effect in terms of RMS and asymmetric index. And performing TENS on elector spinae muscle of acute low back pain patients also has similar effect in terms of RMS but has not in terms of asymmetric index.

• International journal of thyroidology
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.109-116
• /
• 2018

It is very important to identify recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) and prevent RLN injury during thyroid surgery. The intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) for the prevention of RLN injury is a useful method because it can identify the location and status of RLN and predict postoperative vocal cord function easily. The IONM consists of a stimulating side that applies electrical stimulation to the nerve and a recording side that measures the surface electromyography (EMG) of the vocal cord muscle through electrode endotracheal tube. The nerve stimulator and surgical dissector are separate instruments. So, during IONM for the prevention of the RLN injury in conventional, endoscopic, or robotic thyroid surgery, repeated exchanging between surgical instruments and the nerve stimulator is inconvenient and time consuming. On the recording side, the accuracy of the electrode endotracheal tube which measures the EMG of the vocalis muscle can be affected by contact with between electrode and vocal fold and position change of patient. We would like to introduce recent several researches to overcome the current limitations of IONM.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.50 no.3
• /
• pp.187-202
• /
• 2013

The electronic medical device industry and the relevant market have been greatly expanded owing to various factors, such as the advent of the aged society and the spread of the desire for well-being in developed countries, and rapid development of China, India and other emerging markets. The electrical stimulator is one of electronic medical devices most commonly used in homes. The electrical stimulator is widely used for pain relief, rehabilitation, muscle conditioning and others. Since it is mainly used in homes, it is very important to assure the safety and performance for protection of users. However, there is no guideline on evaluation of safety and performance of such electrical stimulator for home use. In this study, various local and foreign references were reviewed to develop the internationally harmonized procedures for safety and performance evaluation of the electrical stimulator and test items, specifications and methods are proposed. In addition, such proposed test items were validated to decide the internationally harmonized tests for safety and performance evaluation. This study will contribute to improvement of quality and safety of electrical stimulators for home use and help the Korean medical device industry have the international competitiveness.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.183-190
• /
• 1999

The purpose of this study was to develop a portable and convenient closed-loop contrel type electrical stimulator for patients with foot drop. This system restores walking movement as well as prevents from atrophy or necrosis of lower limb muscles and increases blood circulation in hemiplegic patients caused by traffic accident, industrial disaster or stoke. This system detects the changes of the ankle joint angle during walking, and then controls the stimulus intensity automatically to maintain the programmed level of the ankle joint angle. Also, this automatic system controls the stimulus intensity which is affected by increased electrode impedance resulting from long time use. The system detects the joint angle by an optical sensor and includes modified PID control which adjusts the stimulus intensity if the joint angle deviates from the preset value. Stimulus parameters are 30~80 volt, 40 Hz, and 0.2 ms. The system was applied to five hemiplegic patients for 42 days. Duration of stimulation was 15 min/day for the first week and then the duration was gradually increased to 30, 60, 90 and 120 min/day. The muscle force was increased up to 29.7%, muscle fatigue was decreased compared with the level before stimulation and the pattern of locomotion was improved. These results suggest that the electrical stimulator with closed-loop control type is more convenient and effective in restoration of locomotion of patients with foot drop than open-loop system.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.32 no.5
• /
• pp.428-432
• /
• 1999

Background: It has been shown that low-grade electrical stimulus can transform fatigue resistant muscles which then can be used to protect the heart. The bulky and cumbersome power sources of the artificial heart or implantable ventricular assist devices are still in need of solution; however, on the other hand, the implantable ventricular assist devices using the resistant muscles as the power source have the advantages of using its own muscle contractions. The purpose of this study was to determine the possibility of a clinical application of the skeletal muscle ventricle. Material and Method: Latissimus dorsi muscles (LDM) of 8 canines were used for skeletal muscle ventricle. A latex chamber was wrapped one and a half times with LDM. The chamber was attached to a pressure transducer via Tygon tube. An electrode stimulator was placed around the thoracodorsal nerve and LDM was stimulated in cyclic bursts of 0.31 sec on time and 6.0 sec off time using 3.0 volt Itrel stimulator. The preload volume was added to the system in 25cc increments. Ejection volumes, pressures, and peak power outputs were measured. Result: Ejection volume was 76.3cc with 0cc of preload. Ejection volumes were less than 70ml with increments of preload over 75cc Pressures were more than 107 mmHg when the preloads were less than 75cc and less than 100 mmHg when the preloads were more than 100cc. Peak power output of 16.6 W/kg was observed at 50cc preload. Conclusion: Depending on the changes of preload, the volumes ejected from skeletal muscle ventricle and pressures from the skeletal muscle contraction surpassed those of the normal heart. These data suggest that there are clinical applications for skeletal muscle ventricular assist system.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
• /
• v.1997 no.11
• /
• pp.9-13
• /
• 1997

The present study was designed to develop the functional electrical stimulation system in order to restore motor function of paralytic patients. We attempt to establish adequate stimulus parameters for the recovery of work unction in lower limb paralysis patients and to develop the electrical stimulation system, which is effective to protect foot drop in these patients. In our animal and human experiment, adequate stimulus condition for surface electrode on the lower limb were 0.2-0.3ms at the duration and 50 Hz, which contain 600Hz train pulse. This parameter has efficiently prevented the foot drop from lower limb paralysis, decreased muscle fatigue and induced powerful contraction of lower limb muscle.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.24 no.6 s.81
• /
• pp.523-531
• /
• 2003

We developed a PC-based 8-channel electrical stimulation system for transcutaneous functional electrical stimulation (FES), and applied it to FES exercise and paraplegic walking. The PC program consists of four parts: a database, a stimulation pattern generator, a stimulus parameter converter, and an exercise program. The stimulation pattern can be arbitrarily generated and edited by using the mouse on the PC screen, and the resulting stimulus parameters arc extracted from the recruitment curves, and transmitted to the 8-channel stimulator through the serial port. The stimulator has nine microprocessors: one master and eight slaves, Each channel is controlled by the slave microprocessor, and is operated independently. Clinical application of the system to a paraplegic patient showed significant increase in the knee extensor torque, the fatigue resistance, and the leg circumference, The patient can now walk about 50 meters for more than 2 minutes.