Bladder event detection for diagnosis of urinary incontinence or treatment of lower urinary tract dysfunction

Abstract

The present disclosure relates generally to using detected bladder events for the diagnosis of urinary incontinence or the treatment of lower urinary tract dysfunction. A system includes a sensing device comprising a pressure sensor to directly detect a pressure within a bladder. The sensing device is adapted to be located within the bladder. The system also includes a signal processing device to: receive a signal indicating the detected pressure within the bladder; detect a bladder event based the detected pressure within the signal; and characterize the bladder event as a bladder contraction event or a non-contraction event. The characterization of the bladder event can be used in the diagnosis of urinary incontinence or the treatment of lower urinary tract dysfunction.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system comprising: 
 a non-transitory memory storing instructions; and   a processor to execute the instructions stored in the memory to at least: 
 filter a signal indicating a pressure detected within a patient’s bladder with a low-pass filter with a cutoff frequency tuned for the patient to provide a filtered signal; 
 apply a multi-level discrete wavelet transform to the filtered signal to provide a transformed signal in a wavelet domain; 
 apply an adaptive thresholding procedure to the transformed signal in the wavelet domain to detect a bladder event, and 
 characterize the bladder event as a voiding contraction event, a non-voiding contraction event, or a non-contraction event based on at least one property of the bladder event according to one or more tunable parameters customized for the patient. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising the sensing device, 
 wherein the sensing device comprises a circuit comprising a bridge-type pressure sensor adapted to directly detect a pressure within the patient’s bladder.   
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the sensing device is configured to be within the patient’s bladder. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the sensing device further comprises a wireless transceiver adapted to transmit the signal indicating the pressure within the patient’s bladder. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the sensing device further comprises a battery adapted to provide power to the pressure sensor. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the memory and the processor are embodied in a signal processing device. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 6 , wherein the signal processing device further comprises a wireless transceiver adapted to receive the signal indicating the pressure detected within the patient’s bladder. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 6 , wherein the signal processing device is adapted to be implantable within the patient or external to the patient. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 6 , wherein the signal processing device is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), an embedded circuit running software, a custom programmable hardware, or software on a hardware computing device. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the bladder event is characterized as the non-contraction event based on a correlation between the pressure and another signal from an external sensor. 
     
     
         11 . A method comprising: 
 receiving, by a signal processing device comprising a processor, a signal indicating a pressure detected within a patient’s bladder from a sensing device   applying, by the signal processing device, a low pass filter to the signal with a cutoff frequency to remove noise from the signal, wherein the cutoff frequency is tuned for the patient;   applying, by the signal processing device, a multi-level discrete wavelet transform to the filtered signal to provide a transformed signal in a wavelet domain;   applying, by the signal processing device, an adaptive thresholding procedure to the transformed signal in the wavelet domain to detect a bladder event; and   characterizing the bladder event as a voiding contraction event, a non-voiding contraction event, or a non-contraction event.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the signal indicating the pressure is transmitted from a sensing device within the patient’s bladder. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the sensing device comprises a circuit comprising a bridge-type a pressure sensor adapted to directly detect the pressure within the patient’s bladder. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the sensing device comprises a wireless transceiver adapted to transmit the signal indicating the pressure within the patient’s bladder. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the sensing device comprises a battery adapted to provide power to the pressure sensor. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the bladder event is characterized as the non-contraction event based correlating the pressure and another signal from an external sensor. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising customizing the one or more tunable parameters for the patient. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising continuously applying the adaptive thresholding procedure to detect additional bladder events. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the adaptive thresholding procedure is updated with new parameters specific to the patient based on the characterizing. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the characterizing is based on a value that is continually recomputed.