Massage chair
AssigneeSanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
InventorsYasuhiro Jikiba, Hideki Sakata, Masao Kume
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A massage unit of a massage device moves upward and downward along a backrest of a chair. A pair of therapeutic arms are pivotably supported on a pair of pivot arms projecting forward when viewed from the backrest. Therapeutic fingers on the therapeutic arms have massage balls disposed on them. The pivot arms are driven to move the therapeutic arms in three dimensions, i.e., up and down, left and right, forward and back, so that a patient is massaged by the massage balls. An angle detector detects the angle of the therapeutic arms relative to the pivot arms. The magnitude and change in the output of the detector is used to determine the portion of the patient's body that is being contacted by the massage balls at any time.
Claims13
A massage chair comprising:
- a backrest on said chair;
- a massage unit associated with said backrest;
- means for permitting raising and lowered said massage unit along said backrest;
- first and second therapeutic arms pivotably supported on first and second pivot arms, respectively, projecting forward from said backrest;
- therapeutic fingers on said therapeutic arms;
- massage balls on said therapeutic fingers;
- means for driving said pivot arms in three dimensions to massage a patient with said massage balls;
- and
- angle detecting means for detecting an angle of said therapeutic arms relative to said pivot arms.
A massage chair comprising:
- a backrest;
- a massage unit in said backrest;
- means for raising and lowering said massage unit in said backrest;
- a pair of therapeutic arms on said massage unit projecting forward therefrom;
- therapeutic fingers on said therapeutic arms;
- massage balls on said therapeutic fingers;
- means for moving said therapeutic arms in three dimensions whereby a patient receives a massage from said massage balls;
- one of a coil of wire and a magnetic core disposed on said therapeutic arm;
- the other of said coil of wire and said magnetic core being mounted on an element of said massage unit;
- said coil and core being positioned so that said core moves in and out of said coil in response to a change in an angle between said therapeutic arm and said element;
- and
- angle detecting means for detecting said change in the angle between said therapeutic arm and said element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.