Design and reliability analysis of a novel laser acupuncture device

Acupuncture has a long history of more than 2000 years in China. However, traditional acupuncture adopts metallic needles which may bring discomfort and pricking to patients. Laser acupuncture (LA) is a non-invasive and painless way to achieve some therapeutic effects. And compared to traditional acupuncture, LA is free from infection. Taking these advantages of LA into consideration, we innovatively developed a portable laser acupuncture device with therapy part and detection part together. Therapy part sends out laser at the wavelength of 650 nm onto special acupoints of patients. And detection part includes integrated light-emitting diode (LED, 735/805/850 nm) and photodiode (OPT101). The detection part is used for the data collection for calculation of hemodynamic parameters based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). In this work, we carried out current-power test for sensitivity of therapy part. And we also conducted liquid-model optical experiment and arm blocking test for the sensitivity and effectiveness of detection part. The final results demonstrated great potential and reliability of the novel laser acupuncture device. In the future, we will apply this device in clinical applications to verify the effectiveness of the device and improve the reliability for more treatment of diseases.