Control of electrically driven corrosion of medical implants
AssigneeSyracuse University
InventorsJeongmin Ahn, Thomas Welles
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Abstract
A dampening device that can be coupled to a medical implant to eliminate harmful electrical oscillations. The device includes circuity that detects harmful electrical oscillations in the implant. The device also includes circuity that generates cancelling electrical signals that counter the detected electrical oscillations. Alternatively, in a medical implant having a taper junction such as a standard hip implant, resistance welding of the taper junction just prior to surgical implanting may be performed after the appropriately dimensioned components are selected to eliminate a metal on metal interface where corrosion is most likely to occur.
Claims15
A device for reducing corrosion of a medical implant, comprising:
- a medical implant;
- a dampening circuit coupled to the medical implant and configured to detect the presence of any electrical potential oscillations in the medical implant and to generate a signal that will at least partially dampen the electrical potential oscillations in the medical implant.
A method of protecting a medical implant against corrosion, comprising the step of coupling a dampening circuit to the medical implant, wherein the dampening circuit is configured to detect the presence of any electrical potential oscillations in the medical implant and to generate a signal that will at least partially dampen the electrical oscillations in the medical implant.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.