The present invention relates to triggering the production and introduction of shock waves into the body of a living being, such as a patient, in synchronism with the breathing of that patient.
German Printed Patent Application 3,146,628 (see also U.S. Pat. No. 4,745,920 and 4,685,461) describes the comminution of concrements by means of shock waves wherein the shock waves are triggered inter alia in response to the breathing of the patient. The purpose is the following. Breathing introduces, from an overall point of view, motion and displacement of organs and parts within the body of that person. This displacement is also effective on concrements such as kidney stones to be comminuted. Hence the location of the concrements varies periodically with the breathing of the person. On the other hand, focusing of shockwaves requires a definite point and locus into which shock waves are to be focused. Therefore the motion of the concrement on the one hand, and the focusing action on the other hand, have to be synchronized, which means that in the course of oscillatory displacement of the concrement on account of breathing, one can establish the locus for the concrement during a particular phase of the breathing cycle, by triggering shockwave generation during one of the next breathing cycles in the same phase point under the assumption that the concrement will have moved back to exactly the same position it had previously during a similar phase within a breathing cycle.
The following are references which refer broadly to this field of art and are of an exemplary nature only. Among thim is also the U.S. Pat. No. 4,539,989 which discloses a device for comminution of concrement in connection with a coupling cushion by means of which the device producing the shock wave is acoustically coupled to the body of the person.