Method of stimulating a hypoglossal nerve for controlling the position of a patient's tongue
AssigneeImThera Medical, Inc.
InventorsPaul M. Meadows, Marcelo G. Lima, Faisal N. Zaidi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for controlling a position of a patient's tongue includes attaching at least one electrode to the patient's Hypoglossal nerve and applying an electric signal through the electrode to at least one targeted motor efferent located within the Hypoglossal nerve to stimulate at least one muscle of the tongue. Methods may also include the use of more than one contact to target more than one motor efferent and stimulating more than one muscle. The stimulation load to maintain the position of the tongue may be shared by each muscle. The position of the patient's tongue may be controlled in order to prevent obstructive sleep apnea.
Claims17
A method for controlling a position of a tongue, the method comprising:
- receiving an implanted electrode having a plurality of contacts to electrically couple the plurality of contacts to a Hypoglossal nerve;
- receiving an implantable pulse generator (IPG), the IPG being electronically coupled to the electrode, the IPG being programmed, without taking into account a timing of respiration, to assign each of the plurality of contacts to one of a plurality of functional groups, and deliver at least two electric signals to the plurality of functional groups in a sequence or interleaving pattern, each of the plurality of contacts pulsing sequentially in a nearly continuous pattern to share a stimulation load of the plurality of contacts;
- and
- applying the at least two electric signals via the plurality of contacts to at least two targeted motor efferent groups located within the Hypoglossal nerve to stimulate at least two muscles of the tongue.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.