Back to results
US 9,326,910 B2Granted
Large area body shaping applicator
AssigneeSyneron Medical Ltd.
InventorsShimon Eckhouse, Avner Rosenberg
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method and apparatus that affect vacuum to massage a volume of the skin and one or more types of skin treatment energies coupled to the massaged volume to treat the skin and subcutaneous adipose tissue and produce a desired treatment effect. The method and apparatus are based on coupling an array or a number of arrays being an assembly of skin treatment units with each skin treatment unit including a hollow cavity and a number of different energy to skin applying elements operative to receive skin treatment energy from a source of such energy and couple or apply the received energy to a treated segment of skin.
Claims22
An apparatus comprising:
- an array of connected skin treatment units, each of the individual skin treatment units in the array comprising a cavity, wherein the application of a vacuum pressure to each individual skin treatment unit is individually controlled by a controller communicating with a valve located inside a cavity of a skin treatment unit, each valve regulating the level of the vacuum in the cavity based at least in part on the volume of skin protrusion inside the cavity in the skin treatment unit and the skin treatment unit adapted to be applied to a skin segment together with each of the other skin treatment units and comprising:
- a housing defining the cavity that fluidly communicates with a common source of negative pressure, with one side of an interior of the housing terminated by a rim adapted to facilitate a sealing of the cavity when the skin treatment unit is applied to the skin, the dimensions of the defined cavity adapted to be sufficient to accommodate a volume of a skin segment drawn into the defined cavity by the source of negative pressure to create a skin protrusion and wherein the skin treatment units are adapted such that repeated application and release of the negative pressure to adjacent skin treatment units generates a back and forth massaging movement of the treated skin volume against the rim of the cavity and against rims of adjacent skin treatment units resulting in a massaging movement of at least a portion of the volume of skin against at least one rim;
- in each cavity, an energy to skin applying element to apply a skin treatment energy to the respective skin protrusion;
- and
- associated with each cavity, a temperature sensor configured to detect a temperature of the respective skin protrusion;
- wherein the controller is further configured to individually apply the skin treatment energy to the skin protrusion based on the temperature of the respective skin protrusion;
- wherein the connection between at least two individual skin treatment units is jointed so that each of the skin treatment units of the array of individual treatment units has at least two degrees of rotational movement with respect to an adjacent skin treatment unit so that the array is adapted to conform to the various topographies of the skin segments.
4 more elements
A device configured to provide automated massaging of a skin segment, the device comprising:
- a housing that defines a cavity, an interface to the skin segment and a pressure source interface, the interface to the skin segment includes a rim adapted to be applied to the skin segment and, which when pressed against the skin segment is configured to substantially seal the defined cavity such that negative pressure individually controlled through the pressure source interface allows pressure to be applied to draw a portion of the skin segment into the defined cavity and forms a protrusion, and release of the negative pressure allows the portion of the skin segment to at least partially vacate the defined cavity;
- an interface to a source of skin treatment energy;
- one or more surface on the housing adapted to come in contact with the skin protrusion and connectivity between the interface to the source of skin treatment energy and the one or more surface such that skin treatment energy can be applied to the skin segment through the one or more surfaces;
- a temperature sensor configured to detect a temperature of the skin protrusion;
- and
- a controller configured to control the application of the skin treatment energy based on the temperature of the skin protrusion;
- wherein the pressure source interface includes a valve located inside the cavity, the valve regulating the level of the vacuum in the defined cavity based on the volume of the protrusion, such that as the volume of the protrusion increases, the negative pressure is released and as the volume of the protrusion decreases, the negative pressure is applied and,
- wherein the device includes a dog-bone type joint for connecting the device to additional devices but, that allows movement of the connected devices relative to each other to facilitate conformation of the connected devices to the topography of the skin segment.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.