Vaginal electrode for urinary incontinence treatment

Abstract

An electrode for insertion into a body cavity during medical treatment, for example, urinary incontinence treatment, may be inserted into a body cavity and used in contact with a muscular surface, and through which at least one electrical signal is applied to the muscular surface under a control of a controller and at least one EMG signal is detected from the muscular surface. The electrode includes: a rod-shaped main body composed of non-conductive material; a plurality of ring-shape conductive bands each of which is disposed apart from one another along a longitudinal axis of the rod-shaped main body; a plurality of ring-shaped metal bands each of which is buried within one of the plurality of ring-shape conductive bands, respectively; and a plurality of electrical lines each of which has one end connected to a corresponding one of the plurality of ring-shaped metal bands and buried within the rod-shaped main body and the other end extended through a rear side of the rod-shaped main body to be electrically coupled to the controller. The main body and the ring-shaped conductive bands are made of non-conductive silicon and conductive silicon, respectively. Also, the main body is formed in a unit by molding process so that there is no hollow space within it. The ring-shaped conductive bands can be formed on the inner and the outer surfaces of the ring-shaped metal bands by a molding process using conductive silicon. This electrode feeds excellent when inserted into a body cavity, is waterproof, durable and easy to manufacture. Moreover, the cost of manufacturing according to the present invention can be remarkably reduced.