Relative Motion Sensor Therapy Control
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current medical devices that deliver therapy for movement disorders, such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease, face challenges in accurately detecting symptoms due to environmental influences, leading to false identifications and inadequate treatment responses.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing relative motion between activity sensors located on or within a medical device and a patient's limb to determine precise motion patterns, allowing for more accurate symptom detection and adaptive therapy delivery by comparing signals from multiple sensors to isolate relevant patient motion from environmental influences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a single activity sensor is used to detect patient motion, then the device complexity is low, but the measurement precision deteriorates due to environmental influences causing false identifications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the detection system into multiple independent activity sensors positioned at different locations (e.g., one sensor in the medical device and another on the patient's limb). Each sensor independently measures motion, and their signals are compared to determine relative motion. This segmentation allows the system to distinguish between environmental motion (affecting both sensors equally) and true symptomatic motion (affecting only the patient's body), thereby improving measurement precision without requiring a single complex sensor
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces relative motion calculation as an intermediary processing step between raw sensor measurements and symptom detection. By computing the difference or relative motion between multiple sensor signals, the system creates a new reference frame that eliminates common environmental influences. This intermediary transformation converts absolute motion measurements into relative motion data, which more accurately reflects true patient symptoms while filtering out environmental noise
2Measurement precision
If multiple activity sensors are used to improve symptom detection accuracy, then the measurement precision improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes environmental influence from the sensor signals by comparing measurements from multiple sensors. The relative motion calculation explicitly separates true patient motion from environmental motion, taking out the harmful environmental component while retaining the useful symptomatic motion information. This extraction process improves measurement precision by eliminating false positives without requiring complex analysis of each individual sensor signal
3Reliability
If relative motion calculation is implemented, then the reliability of therapy control improves, but the loss of information increases due to signal comparison processing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by continuously monitoring relative motion between sensors and using this information to dynamically control therapy delivery. The system compares sensor signals, calculates relative motion, and adjusts therapy parameters based on this feedback loop. This feedback mechanism improves reliability by ensuring therapy is delivered only when true symptomatic motion is detected, while the continuous nature of the feedback preserves motion information through ongoing measurement and adjustment
Data Source
AI summary
The invention is directed to controlling therapy delivery based on a relative motion between a first and second activity sensor. The relative motion between the activity sensors is representative of the relative motion between the locations of the body of the patient at which the respective activity sensors are located. The use of relative motion, however, may substantially remove motion experienced by both the activity sensors, e.g., motion caused by the environment in which patient is located, thus providing a new reference frame from which to analyze the motion measurements. The relative motion may be used to detect a condition of a movement disorder and/or control delivery of the therapy delivered to patient to treat or reduce the condition.