An artificial urinary sphincter based on dielectric elastomer technology

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

With the ongoing journey of automation advancements and a trend towards miniaturization, the choice of actuator plays a crucial role. Over recent years, soft actuators have demonstrated their usefulness in various applications, especially where light weigh ...

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are amongst the most common bacterial infections and are the second-most frequent reason for antibiotic prescriptions. Moreover, in about 25% of all treated cases, recurrence of infection occurs. Uropathogenic Escherichia co ...

Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) proliferate within superficial bladder umbrella cells to form intracellular bacterial communities (IBCs) during early stages of urinary tract infections. However, the dynamic responses of IBCs to host stresses and anti ...

Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is a prevalent reversible neurological disorder characterized by impaired locomotion, cognition and urinary control with ventriculomegaly. Symptoms can be relieved with cerebrospinal fluid drainage, which mak ...

Research advancements in the field of urinary stents have mainly been in the selection of materials and coatings to address commonly faced problems of encrustation and bacterial adhesion. In this study, polylactic acid (PLA) and polypropylene (PP) were eva ...

Ureteral stents are small flexible tubes which are clinically used to restore the urine drainage in presence of obstructions of the ureteral lumen such as tumours, kidney/ureteral stones. The lifetime risk of developing urinary stones is about 20% in men a ...

The present invention relates to a neuromodulation/neurostimulation system (10) for stimulating at least one neuronal circuitry responsible for micturition control in a mammal with bladder disfunction, especially for bladder relaxation and/or for bladder v ...

Current treatments for underactive bladder (UAB) have negative side effects, such as urinary tract infections, mainly because devices used for bladder emptying are in direct contact with urine (e.g. permanent or intermittent catheterisation). Moreover, mos ...

In patients suffering from underactive bladder (UAB), the contraction of the detrusor muscle has insufficient strength or duration to ensure efficient bladder emptying. Although catheterisation is currently the most effective method to empty the bladder, i ...

Acting as an extracellular matrix protein receptor, alpha(v)beta(3) integrin becomes an appealing target for photodynamic therapy of bladder cancer. Here, specific alpha(v)beta(3)-integrin-targeting porphyrinato-gadolinium complexes (Gd-PEG-R-n) are demons ...

Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a life changing condition, affecting 20 million women worldwide. In this study, we developed a bioactive, injectable bulking agent that consists of Permacol (TM) (Medtronic, Switzerland) and recombinant insulin like gro ...

Neuromodulation, the use of electrical interfaces to alter neuronal activity, has been successful as a treatment approach in several neurological disorders, including deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease and epidural spinal stimulation for chroni ...

Clinical success of bladder reconstructive procedures could be promoted by the availability of functional biomaterials. In this study, we have developed a multi-layered scaffold consisting of a bioactive fibrin layer laminated between two collagen sheets a ...

Low urinary tract dysfunctions and symptoms (LUTS) and Urinary incontinence (UI) in particular is a medical condition that affects millions of people worldwide. One of the most promising long term treatments for this condition is the use of an artificial u ...

Locomotion is an essential feature for survival of many organisms, and it is also a technical requirement for untethered biomedical microdevices to operate inside the human body for targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive surgery. The overall goal of ...

Urological tissue engineering offers alternative solutions for congenital and acquired diseases of the urinary tract, which may require reconstructive surgery. It evolves to overcome complications, which might be encountered after surgery. Therefore, tissu ...

Neuroprosthetic devices used for the treatment of lower urinary tract dysfunction, such as incontinence or urinary retention, apply a pre-set continuous, open-loop stimulation paradigm, which can cause voiding dysfunctions due to neural adaptation. In the ...

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are elastic capacitors composed of a pair of compliant electrodes and a soft dielectric elastomer film sandwiched in between. This kind of stretchable capacitors can be actuated when charged, can generate electricity fr ...

Background: Hypospadias and urethral strictures are conditions requiring additional tissue for reconstruction. Due to a limited source of tissue, autologous skin and oral mucosa are frequently used. However, long-term follow-up studies demonstrated signifi ...

Soft actuators with a function of variable stiffness are beneficial to the improvement of the adaptability of robots, expanding the application areas and environments. We propose a tendon-driven soft bending actuator that can change its stiffness using fib ...

An artificial urinary sphincter based on dielectric elastomer technology

Chat with Graph Search

Design and Characterization of an Equibiaxial Multi-Electrode Dielectric Elastomer Actuator

Microtissue models for studying the dynamics of host-pathogen interactions in the urinary bladder

Dynamic persistence of UPEC intracellular bacterial communities in a human bladder-chip model of urinary tract infection

Neural circuits of idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus: A perspective review of brain connectivity and symptoms meta-analysis

Biodegradation and Antimicrobial Properties of Zinc Oxide-Polymer Composite Materials for Urinary Stent Applications

Development of a biologically inspired in-vitro platform for long-term assessment of commercial and innovative ureteral stents

System for micturition control in a mammal with bladder disfunction

Urine-Contactless Device to Empty Bladders: an Ex-Vivo Proof-of-Concept Study in Porcine Bladders

Impedance pumping as a non-invasive treatment for underactive bladder? An ex-vivo proof-of-concept-study in porcine bladders

Bladder Cancer Photodynamic Therapeutic Agent with Off-On Magnetic Resonance Imaging Enhancement

A bioactive injectable bulking material; a potential therapeutic approach for stress urinary incontinence

Neuromodulation in the restoration of function after spinal cord injury

IGF-1-containing multi-layered collagen-fibrin hybrid scaffolds for bladder tissue engineering

Mechanical Characterisation of Porcine Urethra: Non Linear Constitutive Models and Experimental Approach

Microdevices for Locomotion in Complex Biological Fluids

Bio-engineered collagen-fibrin scaffolds for enhancing urological tissue regeneration

Decoding bladder state from pudendal intraneural signals in pigs

Bottlebrush Dielectric Elastomers with Improved Properties for Actuation

Is There a Need for Smooth Muscle Cell Transplantation in Urethral Reconstruction?

Soft Bending Actuator With Fiber-Jamming Variable Stiffness and Fiber-Optic Proprioception