118 results about "Tongue root" patented technology

A method for treating obstructive sleep disorders includes accessing the interior of the tongue through an incision made in the skin in the vicinity of the jaw of a patient; advancing an instrument through the incision into the interior of the tongue; and removing an amount of tissue from the interior of the base of the tongue with the instrument. The present invention includes forming a cavity or plurality of channels in the tongue. The cavity may be collapsed using a suture, fastener or bioadhesive. An emplaced suture may be provided to hold the cavity in a collapsed position thereby reducing the degree of obstruction. Additionally, thermal energy may be applied to the tissue surface immediately surrounding the channels to cause thermal damage to the tissue surface, thereby creating hemostasis and stiffening the surrounding tissue structure.

A method for treating obstructive sleep disorders includes accessing the interior of the tongue through a sublingual incision; advancing an instrument through the incision into the interior of the tongue; and instantaneously removing an amount of tissue from the interior of the base of the tongue with the instrument. The present invention includes forming a cavity or plurality of channels in the tongue. The cavity may be collapsed using a suture, fastener or bioadhesive. An emplaced suture may be provided to hold the cavity in a collapsed position thereby reducing the degree of obstruction. Additionally, thermal energy may be applied to the tissue surface immediately surrounding the channels to cause thermal damage to the tissue surface, thereby creating hemostasis and stiffening the surrounding tissue structure.

Embodiments of the invention include methods and devices to prevent or treat upper airway disorders in mammals related to impaired airflow. One aspect of this invention is a tongue retractor (LTR) that indirectly retracts tongue base by its implant site in the frenulum area. This simplifies the insertion, adjustment and maintenance of the device. Another aspect of this invention describes a highly localized and fully implantable LTR that is inserted into the base of tongue to stiffen lax surface mucosa or mechanically couple it to internal tongue structures. Another aspect of this invention is an LTR inserted in or around the pharyngoglossal fold. This site allows retraction and stiffening of tongue base tissue as well as the soft palate and lateral pharyngeal wall.

A patient's obstructive sleep apnea is treated by identifying a patient with sleep apnea attributable at least in part to movement of a base of a tongue of the patient toward a pharyngeal wall of the patient. The tongue is stiffened by an implant sized to be placed within the tongue. A distal portion of the implant is sized to extend within the tongue from a first end near a mandibular-geniohyoid interface to a second end near a base of the tongue. A proximal portion is attached to the first end and adapted to be secured to a jaw bone of the patient following a period of healing after placement of the implant in the tongue.

A medical appliance for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea in a patient, the appliance comprising: a securing device configured to be removably affixed to the patient's jaw; and a biasing member which is insertable behind the soft palate and / or the base of the patient's tongue, thereby providing for the flow of air in the nasopharyngeal airway; wherein the securing device is connected to the biasing member to allow insertion and / or removal of the biasing member from the nasopharyngeal airway.

The invention belongs to the field of medical image processing, and relates to a self-adapting shaded-area detail reproduction method for a tongue image with sufficient root-part illumination. The invention is provided aiming at tongue images with sufficient root-part illumination. According to the invention, under a condition of a same light source, positions of a shooting device and a shooting object are fixed; exposure times are changed, such that a set of tongue images with different exposures are obtained; the shooting device is subject to response curve estimating with a camera radiation calibration algorithm; according to an obtained three-channel response curve, tongue image sequences with different exposures are synthesized; irradiance values of all pixels of the synthesized tongue image are obtained; through tone mapping, the synthesized tongue image data is mapped to a common displaying device, such that the tongue image is displayed. During the mapping procedure, self-adaptation of the tongue image is achieved, and detail reproduction of tongue-roots with sufficient illumination is realized. With the method, mapping of the synthesized tongue image can be realized, such that details of tongue-roots with sufficient illumination can be reproduced. Therefore, light area and shaded area information of a real tongue can be better reproduced, and objectivity of traditional Chinese medicine tongue inspection can be promoted.

Embodiments of the invention include methods and devices to prevent or treat upper airway disorders in mammals re lated to impaired airflow. One aspect of this invention is a tongue retractor (LTR) that indirectly retracts tongue base by its implant site in the frenulum area. This simplifies the insertion, adjustment and maintenance of the device. Another aspect of this invention describes a highly localized and fully implantable LTR that is inserted into the base of tongue to stiffen lax surface mucosa or mechanically couple it to internal tongue structures. Another aspect of this invention is an LTR inserted in or around the pharyngoglossal fold. This site allows retraction and stiffening of tongue base tissue as well as the soft palate and lateral pharyngeal wall.

The invention discloses a hook laryngoscope for difficult injection intubatton, comprising a hook laryngoscope lens, a battery tube, a battery tube base, a handle and a medical liquid tube. A disconnecting switch is fixedly arranged on one side wall of the handle; and the hook laryngoscope lens is provided with an oxygen supply duct, a medical liquid duct and a spraying head. The hook laryngoscope in use can flexibly and conveniently lift up the hypertrophic epiglottis, can immediately spray and anaesthetize the glottis, the larynx and the tongue root to loosen the glottis when the larynx is cramped so as to smoothly finish intubatton while injecting, ventilating and supply oxygen in vivo. The hook laryngoscope for difficult injection intubatton prolongs the safety time of trachea intubatton operation, lowers the danger of trachea intubatton and improves the success ratio of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The hook laryngoscope for difficult injection intubatton can supply oxygen for administration by manual injection and can also be connected with an injection ventilator for compatible use.

The invention discloses a dual-air-inlet centrifugal draught fan and an extractor hood, and relates to the technical field of extractor hoods. The aim of how to reduce the running noise of the dual-air-inlet centrifugal draught fan is achieved. The dual-air-inlet centrifugal draught fan comprises a volute and a dual-air-inlet impeller, the volute comprises a front cover plate, a rear cover plate and a volute surrounding plate, the front cover plate and the rear cover plate are provided with air inlets, an air outlet channel is connected to the volute surrounding plate, a volute tongue is arranged at the corner between the air outlet channel and the volute surrounding plate, the edge line of the volute tongue is the convex line protruding in the direction away from the root of the volute tongue, the edge line of the volute tongue comprises a first edge line segment and a second edge line segment which are sequentially connected from the front cover plate and the rear cover plate, from the front cover plate to the rear cover plate, the first edge line segment extends in the direction away from the tongue root, the second edge line segment extends in the direction close to the tongueroot, and the first edge line segment and the second edge line segment are convex lines protruding out of the volute tongue. The dual-air-inlet centrifugal draught fan is used for driving gas flowing

The invention relates to a tongue body extracting method in the field of image processing technology. It comprises: ascertaining the tongue tip character area, ascertaining the tongue root character area, generating color gradient picture, constructing Snake initial curve, cutting initially, quoting the cutting effect: directly extracting the tongue body image when it cuts accurately, or enters into the next step; ascertaining some seed points around the tongue body, auto generating Pit line by the color gradient picture and doing second cutting: the corresponding Snake curve has been equally divided, the end point of each section is connected with the corresponding point of the Pit line, computing the spring force between the Pit points, adding the external force in the energy function, iterating the Snake curve until it contracts, at last extracting the tongue body image.

An adjustable soft palate support and an implantation method are provided. The adjustable soft palate support is a flat implant made of a material capable of being implanted into a human body for a long term, including a hard palate connecting end and a support. The support is a flat implant capable of being inserted into a soft palate, and is connected to the hard palate connecting end. The hard palate connecting end includes a connecting structure and an adjustment mechanism connected to a hard palate. The connecting structure on the hard palate connecting end is configured to fix the support to the hard palate, and the adjustment mechanism on the hard palate connecting end is configured to control the movement or a curvature of the support or a lifting degree of the soft palate. Since the hard palate connecting end is fixed to the hard palate, and the support is implanted into a muscular layer of the soft palate, a relaxed and collapsed soft palate and a root portion of a tongue are lifted by using the hard palate as a supporting point. Since swallowing occurs frequently in a non-sleep state, the adjustment mechanism is set to be in an on state, so that the support implanted into the soft palate can move with the natural swinging of the soft palate, so as to reduce interference with swallowing; and before sleep, a control key of the adjustment mechanism on the hard palate is pushed with a finger or an apex of tongue to set the adjustment mechanism to be in an off state, so that the support implanted into the soft palate can lift the soft palate, and change a central axis of the soft palate during natural swinging by lifting the soft palate towards the tongue root, so as to enlarge an airway of a pharynx during breathing, thereby achieving the objectives of treating snoring and obstructive sleep apnea / hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS).

The invention discloses a self-service collector for a throat swab, and relates to the technical field of medical devices. The self-service collector comprises a tongue depressor, a handle and a collector, wherein the collector is installed above the handle, the tongue depressor is installed on one side of the handle, and the throat swab is installed above the tongue depressor; the collector is used for detecting whether the throat swab reaches the throat or not and driving the throat swab to move and rotate. The self-service collector is simple and reasonable in structure, the throat swab isinstalled in a collecting hole firstly, then the tongue root is pressed by the tongue depressor part, then the collector automatically collects a throat swab specimen, then the collector exits, and the throat swab is recycled and inspected. According to the device, a patient can conveniently take a throat swab specimen by himself / herself without operation of medical staff, the probability of crossinfection between doctors and patients can be effectively reduced, the use of protective equipment such as a protective suit is saved at the same time, the practicability is extremely high, and the self-service collector can be used for throat swab sampling of infectivity pneumonia.

The invention discloses a tongue area recognition method and device and a computer storage medium, and relates to the field of artificial intelligence. The tongue area recognition method comprises thefollowing steps: acquiring a tongue image; performing image recognition on the tongue image through a target detection algorithm to obtain target tongue information; inputting the target tongue information into a trained Unet segmentation network for region segmentation to obtain tongue root information, tongue middle information, tongue tip information and tongue edge information. The Unet segmentation network adopts full-scale jump connection, and each layer of the Unet segmentation network is provided with a 1 * 1 convolution kernel; inputting the tongue root information, the tongue middleinformation, the tongue tip information, the tongue edge information and the target tongue information into a trained deep learning network for classification processing to obtain a tongue attribute,a tongue root attribute, a tongue middle attribute, a tongue tip attribute and a tongue edge attribute; in this way, the accuracy of tongue area recognition can be improved to assist in tongue diagnosis judgment.

The invention discloses an animal fixing device and an animal fixing method for non-invasive tracheal intubation. The animal fixing device comprises a base, a first bracket, a second bracket and a fixing platform which are sequentially hinged, wherein sliding slots are formed in the two sides of the fixing platform; slide blocks are arranged inside the sliding slots; rubber ropes are mounted on the slide blocks; a foldable lamp holder and an elastic clamp are mounted on the fixing platform; an LED is mounted at the tail end of the foldable lamp holder. The animal fixing device provided by theinvention can achieve fixing of rats with different body shapes, the inclination angle and the height of the fixing platform can be adjusted randomly, and the mounted foldable lamp holder can change the angle freely through rotation, so that through stable pressing against the neck of a rat, by virtue of light transmitting the neck and through pressing against the tongue root of the rat under theassistance of a spatula, an operator finds a tracheal glottis more easily so as to increase the success rate of an intubation method under direct vision and quickly perform tracheal intubation operation; meanwhile, the elastic clamp can press against the upper jaw of the rat steadily so as to avoid the head from shaking, so that the operation is simple and convenient.

The invention discloses a simple method and a simple device for stopping snoring by electrical stimulation. The method is characterized in that the tongue root and the soft palate are subjected to microelectric-current stimulation by intraoral or extraoral electrodes, and corresponding muscles are enabled to shrink to release an obstruction in a pharyngeal respiratory tract in sleep so as to stop snoring. The simple device comprises an intraoral snore stopping device or an extraoral snore stopping device. The intraoral snore stopping device refers to a single-jaw tooth socket with electrodes contacting with the tongue root and the soft palate and mounted at the rear ends of two sides of the single-jaw tooth socket, particularly, each electrode synchronously contacting with the soft palate and the rear part of the tongue on the same side is mounted on the tongue side of the rear end of each side of the single-jaw tooth socket, the single-jaw tooth socket is formed by a U-shaped grooved bottom plate, an outer assisting plate and an inner assisting plate, the outer assisting plate and the inner assisting plate are connected with the U-shaped grooved bottom plate, and the single-jaw tooth socket varies in shapes according to the dentition shape of patients. The extroral snore stopping device comprises two pairs of electrode patches which can attach to positions, below the jaw and ears, on both sides of the face, and the electrode patches are auxiliarily fixed by an annular elastic belt or an adhesive belt passing by the top of the head and to the chin. The two electrodes are connected to positive and negative electrodes of a power supply which is provided with an adjusting switch. The simple device is non-toxic, harmless, safe, reliable, remarkable in snore stopping effect and convenient to use.

A medical instrument which improves a state of falling of a tongue root of a patient to makes it easy to maintain an air passage in a pharynx portion. An airway of the present invention comprises: an airway main body wherein an elongated tongue plate curved in a longitudinal direction so as to match a curved surface shape of a tongue, and an elongated palate plate curved approximately similarly to the elongated tongue plate, are connected by two side plates; and an inward member which includes a hole for air and is adapted to fit into the airway main body, where the airway may be inserted into an oral cavity while the inward member is kept fitting in the main body, and only the inward member may be extracted after insertion.

The invention discloses an oral fixator, which relates to the field of medical instruments. The oral fixator comprises a fixator body; the inner part of the fixator body has a hollow structure, and the fixator body is filled with an anti-radiation material; one side of the fixator body is provided with a hard palate surface contacted with the oral hard palate, and the other side is provided with a dorsal surface of a tongue contacted with the tongue; the edge of the dorsal surface of the tongue is provided with a tongue pressing tail for pushing a tongue root part forwardly and to a mandible direction; and the tongue pressing tail is located on the oral fixator corresponding to one end of the tongue root part. The oral fixator body is set to have the hollow structure, the oral fixator body is internally filled with the anti-radiation material, rays can be effectively blocked, normal tissues can be prevented from irradiation, discomforts such as oral mucosa injuries, taste injuries and difficult mouth opening can be prevented from happening to the patient, and the radiotherapy accuracy and the effects can be improved.

The invention discloses a tongue movement mechanism of a humanoid head robot. The tongue movement mechanism comprises a tongue tip special-shaped block, a connection shaft, a tongue body special-shaped block, a tongue root special-shaped block, a tongue and telescopic connection rod connection shaft, a telescopic stepped shaft, a coupler, an upper plate, a driving gear, a swing motor, a driven motor, a gear shaft, a lower plate, a telescopic motor, a screw nut, a screw, a telescopic supporting shaft, a curling motor and a telescopic connection rod. The tongue movement mechanism is rarely found in a conventional head robot and improves the human-imitativeness of the head robot further. Telescoping control of a tongue is achieved according to the diamond instability, and the method is simple and reliable. The curling part of the tongue is far from the motors. According to the invention, steel wires are adopted for driving, and the difficulty of remote driving is overcome.

The invention discloses a physical dislocation anti-snoring tooth sleeve which comprises a lower tooth sleeve and an upper tooth positioning belt which is staggered with the front end of the lower tooth sleeve. The lower tooth sleeve and the upper tooth positioning belt are connected through a connecting device. The physical dislocation anti-snoring tooth sleeve is simple in structure, low in manufacturing cost, comfortable to use and less prone to shedding, and a lower gum can be forwards stretched to enable an upper gum and the lower gum to be staggered to drive a tongue root to move forwards by 2-8mm, so that respiratory disorder caused by the fact that a respiratory track is blocked by the tongue root which falls rearwards is avoided.

The present invention is a two part device to prevent a person from snoring consisting of a mouth guard with an attached tongue suppressor. The tongue suppressor attaches to the mouth guard in a manner so that it is adjustable in length and creates a downward pressure on the base of the tongue. The underside of the tongue suppressor has ridges that angle forward to engage papillae on the tongue and thereby prevent the tongue from moving rearward in the mouth during sleep.

The invention relates to a device for positioning the tongue for the treatment of disorders including snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and OSA Syndrome, comprising an anchoring body (10) and means (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) for retracting the tongue, said means being connected to said anchoring body. The tongue retracting means comprises at least two elongated arms arranged on a respective side of said anchoring body, and extending along different sides of the midline of the tongue. There is also provided a method of preventing Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), comprising attaching tongue retracting means to permanently attached members in the tongue of a patient suffering from OSA at positions posterior of the tongue tip (apex), preferably to the corpus lingua and / or tongue root (radix lingua), said retracting means being anchored to structures in the mouth such as the jaws or teeth, whereby the tongue is directly held in a forward position.

An oral appliance is disclosed that provides electrical stimulation to a patient's tongue in a manner that prevents collapse of the tongue and / or soft palate during sleep. More specifically, the appliance may induce a reversible current or currents in a lateral direction across the tongue in a manner that shortens the patient's Palatoglossus muscle, which in turn pulls the patient's soft palate downward towards a base of the tongue and / or decreases a volume of the tongue.

The present invention is an electric anti-snoring mouthpiece, which has grooves for upper teeth and grooves for lower teeth. The side plate is composed of a pair of electrodes on both sides of the opening of the inner side plate that are respectively in contact with the soft palate and the base of the tongue. The pair of electrodes are respectively connected to the positive and negative poles of the power supply. The voltage of the power supply is a constant DC power supply of 3-4.5v Or pulse power supply, and a regulating switch. When in use, let the upper teeth and lower teeth of the patient enter the grooves of the upper teeth and the lower teeth respectively and clench them tightly. The two electrodes are respectively in contact with the base of the tongue and the soft palate on the same side. Turn on the power and adjust the voltage to feel comfortable. Slight contraction avoids the oppression and narrowing deformation of the pharyngeal airway by the tongue base and soft palate falling backward, so as to achieve the purpose of eliminating snoring. The invention can effectively eliminate snoring, and at the same time, has simple structure, low manufacturing cost, convenient use, safety, reliability, non-toxicity and harmlessness, and the symptoms of users are obviously alleviated or the elimination rate reaches 99%.

The invention provides an improved mouth gag for exposing a tongue root. The improved mouth gag comprises a handle and a tongue depressor, wherein the handle is provided with a mounting part and a connecting hole, a clamping buckle is arranged in the connecting hole, the tongue depressor is provided with a connecting part, a tongue root part and an arc part, a clamping groove is formed in the connecting part, and the connecting part of the tongue depressor passes through the connecting hole of the handle, and is in clamping connection with the clamping buckle through the clamping groove. According to the invention, the tongue root part with a curve and the tongue depressor with the arc part are arranged to realize the forward movement of the tongue root while a tongue body is pressed down, so as to greatly increase the exposure volume of the tongue root and the surgical operation space; meanwhile, the connection mode of the clamping buckle and the clamping groove is set, so that the improved mouth gag is convenient to assemble and disassemble, and two tongue depressors are provided for replacement to adapt to different tongue root illnesses.

The present invention describes an improved surgical mouth gag for the exposure of the palatal and oropharyngeal region of a patient comprising a frame (2) adapted to be arranged in use around the mouth of the patient and a tongue depressor system (21, 30) insertable in the oral cavity of the patient and movable with respect to the frame (2), the tongue depressor blade (21, 30) comprising two elements articulated to each other, able to mobilise fully in a graduated way the entire tongue base both in the caudal and posterior-anterior direction. The metal arch (2) supports and anchors the aforesaid tongue depressor system, by resting on the upper premolar and molar teeth (respecting the incisors) and acts as an anterior window adapted to guarantee both optimal exposure of the palatal structures and of the isthmus of the fauces and to facilitate palatal and oropharyngeal surgery in general and that of obstructive sleep disorders in particular.

The invention provides a drenching mouth opening device for domestic pig breeding, and discloses a mouth opening device which is used for supporting and expanding the oral cavities of domestic pigs, pressing downwards and fixing the tongue roots and facilitating drenching. The device is characterized in that one end of a lower fixed arm is arranged at one end of a lower supporting arm, the lower fixed arm is of an arc structure, one end of a lower clamping arm is arranged at one end of the lower supporting arm through a connecting shaft, and the lower clamping arm and the lower fixed arm forma U shape; one end of a transmission arm is arranged at one end of the lower clamping arm, one end of a driving rod is hinged to the other end of the transmission arm, and a hinge hole in one end of the driving rod is a kidney-shaped hole; the middle of the driving rod is hinged to the lower supporting arm through a rotating shaft, the driving rod and the lower supporting arm form an X shape, theother end of the driving rod is connected with the lower supporting rod through a compression spring, and the other end of the lower fixed arm is connected with the other end of the lower clamping armthrough a telescopic rubber tube; a tongue depressor is arranged on the telescopic rubber tube, and rubber pads are arranged on the outer edge of the other end of the lower fixed arm and the outer edge of the other edge of the lower clamping arm respectively.

The invention relates to teaching aids for elementary education of English phonetic symbols and a using method thereof, which mainly aims at solving the problem that the current teaching of English phonetic symbols lacks of visual teaching aids. The teaching aids comprise a template on which a nose, an upper lip and upper teeth and a deckplate of oral cavity are drawn, a glottis and a tongue root axis; a lingual plate is arranged on the tongue root axis; a first auxiliary lingual plate, a second auxiliary lingual plate, a lower labial plate and a simulant of airflow are arranged under the lingual plate; the lower labial plate and the simulant of airflow are linked with the template by the way of magnets or sliding shafts or sliding tracks arranged inside and the first auxiliary lingual plate is linked with the template or the lingual plate by the way of magnets or sliding shafts or sliding tracks arranged inside. Through the movements of the lingual plate with the first auxiliary plate, the second auxiliary plate and the lower labial plate, the change of the shapes of the tongue and the mouth can be realized and the movements of the stimulant of airflow combined with the movements of the lingual plate and the first auxiliary plate, the second plate and the lower labial late, the pronunciation method of the English phonetic symbols can be demonstrated. The teaching aids and the using method of the invention have the advantages of vivid and visual English phonetic symbol teaching with great interest, thus being capable of increasing the learning interest of students, deepening the memory and remarkably improving the learning effect.