A portable therapeutic device and method of use generate longitudinally propagating ultrasound and shear waves generated by such longitudinally propagating ultrasound to provide effective healing of wounds. A transducer having an operative surface is disposed substantially adjacent to the wound to emit ultrasound to propagate in the direction of the wound to promote healing. Reflections of the ultrasound by bone tissue, by skin layers, or by internally disposed reflective media propagate toward the wound as longitudinal waves, with shear waves generated by the longitudinal waves for the healing of the wound. A focusing element is used for focusing the propagation of the ultrasound at a predetermined angle toward the wound. The operative surface of the transducer may be annularly shaped to encircle the wound to convey the ultrasound and/or reflected ultrasound thereto. A housing may be provided for positioning the transducer near a portion of the skin near the wound, and for indenting the skin to form a cavity, with the transducer disposed in the cavity to emit the ultrasound toward an internal surface of the wound. Fixture structures, such as adjustable straps, may extend about a portion of the body to position the transducer near the wound.

Ultrasonic treatment for wounds

A kit of elements including an ultrasonic generator (12), transducers (402) with connecting cables (407, 408), and a means (405, 406) for locating the transducers over areas of the body containing cartilage, is provided with the surgical instruments for post-surgical application to ultrasonically stimulate the cartilage growth, thus relieving the effects of surgical intervention.

Method and apparatus for cartilage growth stimulation

The invention relates to methods and apparatus for therapeutically treating connective tissue or increasing vascularization in tissue using ultrasound. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus which use ultrasound to stimulate growth or healing, or to treating pathologies, of connective tissue, or to increase vascularization in ischaemic or grafted tissue using ultrasound.

Method and Apparatus for Connective Tissue Treatment

A system (10) having a processor, a memory, generates low frequency ultrasound signals to be applied to tissue (14) to generate a weighted sum of tissue ramp, step, and impulse signatures. The system (10) analyzes the tissue signatures to determine the low frequency target profile which is used to generate a graphic representation of the tissue as well as to estimate the volume of the tissue; to classify the tissue (14) as to type, and condition of the tissue using a set of stored tissue data. The classifier may include a neural network (34), and/or a nearest neighbor rule processor (36). The system (10) performs as a non-invasive acoustic measurement, an imaging system, and method which uses Synthetic Structural Imaging (SSI) techniques to provide unique information concerning the size, shape of biological structures for classification, visualization of normal, abnormal tissues, organs, biological structures, etc.

Method and means for synthetic structural imaging and volume estimation of biological tissue organs

A non-invasive bone condition data acquisition system performs sensitive and reliable clinical data acquisition, localization and classification of bone disease, particularly osteoporosis. The bone condition data acquisition system measures a correlation between a wideband AE signature and a spatially localized bone microarchitecture, which is used to determine fracture risk. The bone condition data acquisition system includes processors and memory for analyzing AE signals from bone tissue to generate information-bearing attributes, for extracting a set of times-of-arrival and a feature vector from the attributes, for utilizing the set of times-of-arrival to derive the locations of the AE events, and for responding to the feature vector to classify the bone using a neural network and a nearest neighbor rule processor.

Method and apparatus for the acoustic emission monitoring detection, localization, and classification of metabolic bone disease

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/10274/32707/01533230.pdf

G.T. Hannon

Papers

Acoustic Emission and Diagnosis of Osteoporosis