JP7529211B2 - Ultrasound equipment - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an ultrasound device that uses sound to indicate the condition of the skin.

Conventionally, various devices that use ultrasound have been known, and for example, many ultrasound imaging diagnostic devices have been proposed in the medical field. In a typical ultrasound imaging diagnostic device, ultrasound is irradiated onto the human body, which is the object to be measured, and the intensity of the reflected wave signal of the returning ultrasound is brightness-modulated to obtain an ultrasound image (B-mode image). In recent years, there has been a need to obtain ultrasound images of the skin. For this reason, ultrasound imaging diagnostic devices that use high-frequency ultrasound transducers suitable for diagnosing relatively shallow parts of the human body have been proposed (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

JP 2006-271765 A

However, when it comes to measuring very thin objects such as skin, it is difficult to express subtle differences in areas with complex and fine reflections in ultrasound images. Furthermore, even if the device user looked at the ultrasound image, it was extremely difficult to visually grasp differences in the internal condition of the skin. As a result, there was a demand for a method that could clearly express the internal condition of the skin, which is difficult to show in ultrasound images.

The present invention was made in consideration of the above problems, and its purpose is to provide an ultrasound device that can easily express the internal condition of the skin, which is difficult to express in an ultrasound image, by converting it into sound.

Therefore, the inventors of the present application conducted intensive research and came up with the idea of expressing the information inside the skin contained in the reflected ultrasonic wave signal by replacing it with sound instead of an image. Then, they found that even if the reflected ultrasonic wave signal is not originally an audible sound signal, it can be output as an audible sound in which subtle differences in the reflection of the ultrasonic wave are easily understood if a predetermined appropriate signal processing is performed, and after trial and error, they finally came up with the following invention of the present application. Incidentally, the technology of extracting sounds such as heart sounds from the reflected ultrasonic wave signal and making them audible has been well known for a long time, but the heart sound is an audible sound emitted by the heart in the first place, and can be heard as it is without relying on special signal processing. Therefore, the technology of the present invention, which does not emit audible sounds in the living body and makes the reflected wave signal from the skin, which is a very thin tissue, audible, is essentially different from such conventional technology.
In order to solve the above problems, the invention described in claim 1 is an ultrasonic device that expresses the condition of the skin with sound, and is equipped with a signal processing means that modulates the reflected wave signal of ultrasonic waves irradiated to the skin within a modulation width range set narrower than the human audible range, converts it into a high and low sound, and extends it in the time axis direction to extend the duration of the output signal , and a sound output means that outputs the audible sound signal obtained through processing by the signal processing means as an audible sound.

The reflected wave signal of the ultrasound irradiated to the skin is too high in frequency to be heard by the human ear, and is obtained when passing through a very thin layer, so the time is too short (microsecond level) to be heard by the human ear. Therefore, according to the invention described in claim 1, an audible sound signal with high and low sounds in an audible frequency range and extended to an audible length can be obtained based on the reflected wave signal of the ultrasound. Therefore, the reflected wave signal from the skin, which is a very thin tissue that does not emit audible sounds inside the living body, can be output as an audible sound that makes it easy to understand the subtle differences in the reflection of the ultrasound. Therefore, it is possible to easily express the internal state of the skin, which is difficult to express with an ultrasound image, by replacing it with sound.

The invention described in claim 2 is an ultrasound device that expresses the condition of the skin with sound, comprising: acoustic parameter signal conversion means for converting a reflected wave signal of ultrasound irradiated to the skin into an acoustic parameter signal indicating an acoustic parameter value in the depth direction of the skin; signal processing means for sound modulating the acoustic parameter signal within a modulation width range set narrower than the human audible range, converting it into a high and low sound, and stretching it in the time axis direction to extend the duration of the output signal ; and sound output means for outputting an audible sound signal obtained through processing by the signal processing means as an audible sound.

Therefore, according to the invention described in claim 2, an audible sound signal can be obtained that has audible frequency range and is extended to an audible length based on an acoustic parameter signal derived from an ultrasonic reflected wave signal. Therefore, the reflected wave signal from the skin, which is a very thin tissue and does not emit audible sound in the living body, can be output as an audible sound that makes it easy to see subtle differences in ultrasonic reflection. Therefore, it is possible to easily express the internal state of the skin, which is difficult to express in an ultrasonic image, by replacing it with sound. In particular, in the present invention, the magnitude of the acoustic parameter value in the depth direction of the skin is converted into the height of the sound, so that the internal state of the skin is easily reflected accurately, and subtle differences in ultrasonic reflection are even more easily seen.

The invention described in claim 3 is based on claim 1 or 2, and is characterized in that the reflected wave signal of ultrasound irradiated to the skin or the acoustic parameter signal obtained by converting the reflected wave signal into a signal indicating an acoustic parameter value in the depth direction of the skin includes a first region corresponding to reflection from a superficial layer of the skin and a second region corresponding to reflection from a layer deeper than the superficial layer and having a longer duration than the first region, and the extension rate of the first region when the signal processing means performs extension in the time axis direction is set to be greater than the extension rate of the second region.

Therefore, according to the invention described in claim 3, the proportion of time occupied by the first region corresponding to reflection from the surface layer of the skin becomes large in the audible sound signal. This makes it possible to express in an easy-to-understand manner the state of the extremely thin stratum corneum located at the surface layer of the skin by replacing it with sound.

The invention described in claim 4 is based on any one of claims 1 to 3 and further comprises a modulation width changing means for changing the modulation width when the signal processing means performs sound modulation, and an expansion rate changing means for changing the expansion rate when the signal processing means performs expansion in the time axis direction.

Therefore, according to the invention described in claim 4, since the modulation width during sound modulation and the extension rate during time extension can be changed, the pitch and length of the audible sound can be appropriately adjusted so that subtle differences in ultrasonic reflection are most easily noticeable to the user.

The gist of the invention described in claim 5 is that in any one of claims 1 to 4, the invention further comprises a storage means for storing the audible sound signal obtained through processing by the signal processing means.

Therefore, according to the invention described in claim 5, for example, a reference audible sound signal can be sampled in advance and listened to as needed, so that the newly acquired audible sound can be compared with the reference audible sound. In other words, since there is a sound to compare, subtle differences in the reflection of ultrasonic waves become even more noticeable.

As described above in detail, the inventions described in claims 1 to 5 can provide an ultrasound device that can easily express the internal condition of the skin, which is difficult to express in an ultrasound image, by converting it into sound.

1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an ultrasonic device according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the electrical configuration of the ultrasound apparatus according to the embodiment. FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view for explaining the structure of skin. 5A and 5B are schematic diagrams for explaining a reflected wave signal and an audible sound signal. (a) is a graph showing the reflected wave signal before detection when a male in his 60s was used as the subject, (b) is a graph showing the reflected wave signal after detection, and (c) is a graph showing the reflected wave signal after sound modulation processing and time extension processing. (a) is a graph showing the reflected wave signal before detection when a woman in her twenties was used as a subject, (b) is a graph showing the reflected wave signal after detection, and (c) is a graph showing the reflected wave signal after sound modulation processing and time extension processing.

One embodiment of the ultrasound device of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to Figs. 1 to 4. This ultrasound device 1 is a device that can express the condition of the skin in sound using ultrasound (ultrasonic skin condition expression device). This device may also be called an ultrasonic skin diagnostic device or an ultrasonic skin diagnostic device. For convenience, this embodiment will refer to it as ultrasonic skin diagnostic device 1.

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram showing an ultrasonic skin diagnostic device 1 in this embodiment. The ultrasonic skin diagnostic device 1 is composed of an ultrasonic probe 2, a transmitting/receiving unit 3, and a personal computer (PC) 4. The ultrasonic probe 2, the transmitting/receiving unit 3, and the PC 4 are electrically connected via, for example, a cable 5.

The ultrasonic probe 2 is a device that has the function of irradiating ultrasonic waves to the skin 51, which is the object of measurement, and converting the reflected waves from the skin into an electrical signal and outputting it. This ultrasonic probe 2 includes a transducer 12 as an ultrasonic vibrator and a hollow rod-shaped handpiece unit 11 that also serves as a housing for the transducer 12. The handpiece unit 11 is a so-called gripping unit, and has a length and diameter that allows it to be held by hand. The transducer 12 is housed in the tip of the handpiece unit 11 with the ultrasonic transmission/reception surface facing the tip. This transducer 12 transmits focused ultrasonic waves. Therefore, the ultrasonic waves transmitted from the transducer 12 are focused in a cone shape and are focused near the outer surface of the handpiece unit 11. For example, in this embodiment, a high-frequency transducer with a diameter of 3 mm, a thickness of 3 mm, and a bandwidth of several tens to several hundreds of MHz is used as the transducer 12.

Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the electrical configuration of the ultrasound skin diagnostic device 1.

As shown in FIG. 2, the transmission/reception unit 3 interposed between the ultrasonic probe 2 and the personal computer 4 includes an oscillator 21, a preamplifier 22, a logarithmic amplifier 23, an A/D converter 24, etc. The personal computer 4 includes a controller 25, a memory 26 as a storage means, audibility processing circuit 27 as a signal processing means, an audio amplifier 28, a speaker 29, and an input device 30.

The oscillator 21 that constitutes the transmitting/receiving unit 3 is a circuit that generates a high-frequency pulse to drive the transducer 12. The oscillator 21 generates a high-frequency pulse based on a control signal output from the controller 25 of the personal computer 4. The high-frequency pulse is output to the transducer 12 via a transmitting/receiving wave separation circuit (not shown). The transducer 12 converts the high-frequency pulse into ultrasonic waves and transmits them to the outside of the ultrasonic probe 2.

In this embodiment, the transducer 12 is an ultrasonic vibrator that can transmit and receive ultrasonic waves, and converts ultrasonic waves reflected by the skin 51 into an electrical signal (i.e., reflected wave signal S1). The reflected wave signal S1 is then supplied to the preamplifier 22 via the transmission/reception separation circuit of the transmission/reception unit 3. The preamplifier 22 amplifies the reflected wave signal S1 and outputs it to the logarithmic amplifier 23. The logarithmic amplifier 23 extracts the reflected wave signal S1 from the skin 51 from the reflected wave signal S1 and outputs it to the A/D converter 24. Specifically, in this embodiment, the reflected wave signal from the surface of the skin 51 to a depth of about 200 μm is extracted. The A/D converter 24 A/D converts the output signal of the logarithmic amplifier 23, and then transfers it to the personal computer 4 via an I/F circuit (not shown).

The controller 25, memory 26, sonification processing circuit 27, audio amplifier 28, speaker 29, and input device 30 in the personal computer 4 are electrically connected to each other via a bus.

The controller 25 is a central processing unit (CPU) that executes a predetermined control program and controls the entire device. The control program includes a program for sonification processing.

The memory 26 serving as a storage means is a storage device such as an HDD (hard disk drive) or SSD (solid state drive), and stores various data in addition to the above-mentioned control programs. Note that signals transferred from the transmitting/receiving unit 3 (digitized ultrasonic reflected wave signal S1) and the like are also temporarily stored in this memory 26.

The input device 30 is, for example, a keyboard, a mouse device, a pointing device, etc., and is used to input requests, instructions, and parameters from the user. When a specific instruction is given from the input device 30, the controller 25 operates according to the instruction, and reads out programs and data from the memory 26 and executes them sequentially.

The audio amplifier 28 amplifies the output signal (audible sound signal S2) from the audible processing circuit 27 and outputs it to the speaker 29. The speaker 29, which serves as a sound output means, outputs the amplified audible sound signal S2 as an audible sound.

Next, a description will be given of the signal processing for sonification executed in the ultrasonic skin diagnosis device 1 of this embodiment. The ultrasonic skin diagnosis device 1 includes a sonification processing circuit 27 as a signal processing means. The sonification processing circuit 27 is composed of a sound modulation processing section 31 and a time expansion processing section 32, and executes a predetermined signal processing based on a control signal output from the controller 25.

The sound modulation processing unit 31 inputs the ultrasonic reflected wave signal S1 from the memory 26 and executes a predetermined sound modulation process. Since the human audible range is about 20 Hz to about 20 kHz, the frequency of the reflected wave signal S1 is too high to be heard by the human ear. In the sound modulation processing unit 31, a modulation width narrower than the human audible range (about 20 Hz to about 20 kHz), for example, a modulation width of about 300 Hz to 3 KHz, is set. The sound modulation processing unit 31 then converts the strength of the reflected wave signal S1 within this modulation width range into a high-pitched sound in the audible range by sound modulation (frequency modulation). Here, the stronger the reflected wave signal S1, the higher the sound is converted, and the weaker the reflected wave signal S1, the lower the sound is converted. Conversely, the stronger the reflected wave signal S1, the lower the sound is converted, and the weaker the reflected wave signal S1, the lower the sound is converted.

The time expansion processing unit 32 inputs the output signal from the sound modulation processing unit 31 and executes a predetermined time expansion process. The human skin 51 is made of a very thin layer (a layer of several mm thick), and the reflected wave signal S1 is obtained when passing through such a very thin layer. Therefore, the time of the signal itself is too short (because it is at the microsecond level) and cannot be heard by the human ear. This is the same even for the signal after the sound modulation process. The time expansion processing unit 32 expands the output signal (i.e., the reflected wave signal S1 after the sound modulation process) in the time axis direction so that it has a length that can be heard by the human ear. Specifically, in this embodiment, the output signal is expanded so that it has a length of about 0.5 seconds to 1 second. In other words, the length of the signal is expanded so that it is several tens to several hundreds times the original length. The time- expanded signal is then output to the audio amplifier 28.

Figure 3 is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the layer structure of human cheek skin 51. Skin 51 is formed of epidermis 61, dermis 62, and subcutaneous tissue (not shown). The stratum corneum 63 is located at the outermost layer of epidermis 61, and from stratum corneum 63 to deeper layers are epidermal layer 64 and basal layer 65. Dermis 62 has papillary layer 66 (dermis) in contact with basal layer 65, and reticular dermis 67.

In FIG. 3, the reflected wave signal S1 is shown on the left side of the schematic cross-sectional view of the skin 51. The reflected wave signal S1 includes a first region R1 and a second region R2. The portion corresponding to the reflection from the surface layer of the skin 51 (the stratum corneum 63 having a thickness of several tens of μm in this embodiment) is defined as the "first region R1" here. The portion corresponding to the reflection from a layer deeper than the stratum corneum 63, which is longer than the first region R1, is defined as the "second region R2" here. In this embodiment, the extension rate when the time extension processing unit 32 performs extension in the time axis direction is set to be different between the first region R1 and the second region R2. Specifically, the extension rate of the first region R1 is set to be larger (for example, about 10 to 100 times) than the extension rate of the second region R2. FIG. 4 shows this in schematic form. In Figure 4, it can be seen that in the reflected wave signal S1, the temporal proportion occupied by the first region R1 corresponding to reflection from the stratum corneum 63 is very small, whereas in the audible sound signal S2, the temporal proportion occupied by the first region R1 is expanded.

Next, we will explain how to use the ultrasound skin diagnostic device 1 of this embodiment.

First, the user of the device holds the handpiece 11 of the ultrasonic probe 2 in his/her hand and places the tip of the handpiece 11 against the skin 51 (e.g., the skin of the cheek) of the subject. In this state, the ultrasonic skin diagnostic device 1 is driven, and ultrasonic pulses are irradiated from the transducer 12 to the skin 51. The ultrasonic waves reflected from the skin 51 are received by the transducer 12 as a reflected wave signal S1, and are transferred to the personal computer 4 via the transmitting/receiving unit 3. The reflected wave signal S1 of the ultrasonic waves taken into the personal computer 4 is made into an audible sound by the sound modulation process and time extension process described above in the audible processing circuit 27. The audible sound signal S2 obtained in this way is output as an easily audible sound by passing through the audio amplifier 28 and the speaker 29.

In this embodiment, a woman in her twenties and a man in his sixties were used as test subjects, and audible sounds were actually obtained by the above method and compared. Incidentally, FIG. 5(a) is a graph G1 showing the reflected wave signal S1 before detection for a man in his sixties. FIG. 5(b) is a graph G2 showing the reflected wave signal S1 after detection. FIG. 5(c) is a graph G3 showing the reflected wave signal S1 (i.e., the audible sound signal S2) after sound modulation processing and time extension processing. In contrast, FIG. 6(a) is a graph G1 showing the reflected wave signal S1 before detection for a woman in her twenties. FIG. 6(b) is a graph G2 showing the reflected wave signal S1 after detection. FIG. 6(c) is a graph G3 showing the reflected wave signal S1 (i.e., the audible sound signal S2) after sound modulation processing and time extension processing. The vertical axis in each figure indicates signal intensity. The horizontal axis in Fig. 5(a), Fig. 5(b), Fig. 6(a), and Fig. 6(b) indicates the elapsed time (seconds), and the horizontal axis in Fig. 5(c) and Fig. 6(c) indicates the depth (m) from the skin surface. Here, data of about 1 microsecond was extended to 0.5 seconds as a whole. In particular, the extension rate was set high for the first 0.1 microseconds, and the data was extended to about 1/3 of the total length (about 0.15 seconds). In addition, the intensity range of the reflected wave signal S1 was set to 0 to about 6000, and the modulation width was set to 500 kHz to 3 kHz to perform sound modulation (frequency modulation). As a result of the above comparison test, there was a clear difference in the audible sounds of both. In both the audible sounds of the women in their 20s and the men in their 60s, there was a tendency for the sounds to change from high to low over time (see Fig. 5(c) and Fig. 6(c)). However, in the case of the men in their 60s, the pitch of the sound at the beginning was somewhat higher than that of the women in their 20s. This was presumably due to the fact that the stratum corneum 63 of the skin 51 of the man in his 60s had hardened due to aging, resulting in greater reflection from the stratum corneum 63. In addition, the sound of the woman in her 20s gradually became lower over time, whereas the sound of the man in his 60s suddenly became lower. This was presumably due to the fact that soft tissue such as elastin had developed in the dermis 62 of the skin 51 of the man in his 60s due to aging, resulting in smaller reflection from the dermis 62.

Therefore, this embodiment provides the following advantages:

(1) In the ultrasonic skin diagnosis device 1 of the present embodiment, the reflected wave signal S1 of the ultrasonic wave is modulated by the above-mentioned sonification processing circuit 27 within a range of a modulation width set narrower than the human audible range, converted into high and low sounds, and extended in the time axis direction. As a result, an audible sound signal S2 can be obtained that is accompanied by high and low sounds in an audible frequency range and extended to an audible length. Therefore, the reflected wave signal S1 from the skin 51, which is a very thin tissue that does not emit audible sounds in a living body, can be output from the speaker 29 as an audible sound that makes it easy to understand subtle differences in the reflection of ultrasonic waves. Therefore, it is possible to easily express the internal state of the skin 51, which is difficult to express in an ultrasonic image, by replacing it with sound. Therefore, the user of the device or the subject who hears the sound can grasp the internal state of the skin 51 (for example, the progress of aging, etc.) to some extent through hearing, and it becomes possible to perform a simple skin diagnosis without specialized knowledge.

(2) In the ultrasonic skin diagnosis device 1 of the present embodiment, when the time expansion processing unit 32 in the audible processing circuit 27 performs the time expansion process, the expansion rate of the first region R1 of the reflected wave signal S1 is set to be greater than the expansion rate of the second region R2. Therefore, the temporal proportion of the first region R1 corresponding to the reflection from the stratum corneum 63 in the audible sound signal S2 becomes large. Therefore, it becomes possible to express the state of the stratum corneum 63, which is easily affected by aging and is extremely thin, in an easily understandable manner by replacing it with sound.

(3) The ultrasound skin diagnostic device 1 of this embodiment does not perform various signal processing steps to obtain an ultrasound image, nor does it have a display device for displaying an ultrasound image. This allows for a cheaper and simpler device configuration than general ultrasound imaging diagnostic devices.

The embodiment of the present invention may be modified as follows:

In the sound modulation processing unit 31 in the sonification processing circuit 27 of the above embodiment, the reflected wave signal S1 of the ultrasound irradiated to the skin 51 is sound modulated within a modulation width range set narrower than the human audible range to convert it into a high and low sound, but this is not limited to this and may be changed to another configuration shown below, for example. That is, in the ultrasound skin diagnosis device 1 of another embodiment, the controller 25 also functions as an acoustic parameter signal conversion means. A program for converting the acoustic parameter signal is stored in the memory 26. The controller 25 is configured to call up and execute this program from the memory 26. The controller 25 as the acoustic parameter signal conversion means sequentially estimates acoustic parameter values along the depth direction of the skin 51 based on the reflected wave signal S1 of the ultrasound irradiated to the skin 51. In this embodiment, acoustic impedance is selected as the acoustic parameter. As a method for estimating the acoustic impedance value, for example, the method described in Japanese Patent No. 6361001 can be applied. Then, based on the result of estimating such an acoustic impedance value, it is converted into an acoustic parameter signal indicating the acoustic impedance value in the depth direction of the skin 51. The sound modulation processing unit 31 in the sonification processing circuit 27 then performs sound modulation (frequency modulation) on this acoustic parameter signal within a modulation width range set narrower than the human audible range to convert it into a higher pitch. Specifically, the larger the acoustic impedance value indicated by the acoustic parameter signal, the higher the sound it is converted into, and the smaller the acoustic impedance value, the lower the sound it is converted into. Note that the opposite may also be true, where a larger acoustic impedance value is converted into a lower sound, and a smaller acoustic impedance value is converted into a lower sound.

Therefore, with this configuration, it is possible to obtain an audible sound signal S2 that includes high and low sounds in an audible frequency range and is extended to an audible length based on the acoustic parameter signal derived from the reflected ultrasonic wave signal S1. In particular, in this embodiment, the magnitude of the acoustic impedance value in the depth direction of the skin 51 is converted into high and low sounds, so that the internal state of the skin 51 is easily reflected accurately, and subtle differences in the reflection of the ultrasonic wave become even more noticeable.

- In the above embodiment, the audible sound signal S2 output by the sonification processing circuit 27 is directly amplified by the audio amplifier 28 and then output as an audible sound from the speaker 29, but this is not limited to the above. For example, a predetermined correction process (gamma processing, differentiation processing, etc.) may be performed on the audible sound signal S2, and the corrected audible sound signal S2 may be input to the audio amplifier 28. By performing such correction processes appropriately, it is possible to change the subtle differences in the reflection of ultrasonic waves so that they are most easily noticeable to the user.

In the above embodiment, the modulation width when the sound modulation processing unit 31 in the sonification processing circuit 27 performs sound modulation processing and the expansion rate when the time expansion processing unit 32 performs time expansion processing are fixed to a predetermined value in advance and cannot be changed, but this is not limited to this. For example, the ultrasound skin diagnosis device 1 may further include a modulation width changing means that can change the modulation width and an expansion rate changing means that can change the expansion rate. Specifically, the controller 25 may also function as a modulation width changing means and an expansion rate changing means, and the controller 25 may operate according to an instruction from the input device 30 to execute a program that changes the modulation width and the expansion rate. With this configuration, since the modulation width during sound modulation and the expansion rate during time expansion can be changed, the pitch and length of the audible sound can be appropriately adjusted so that the subtle differences in the reflection of the ultrasound are most easily noticeable to the user.

- In the above embodiment, the audible sound signal S2 obtained through processing by the sonification processing circuit 27 was output as an audible sound from the speaker 29 only once at that time, and could not be listened to again later. In contrast, the audible sound signal S2 may be stored in the memory 26 as a storage means, so that the stored audible sound can be listened to again many times later. Also, with this configuration, for example, the reference audible sound signal S2 can be sampled in advance and listened to as needed, so that the newly acquired audible sound can be compared with the reference audible sound. In other words, since there is a sound to compare, subtle differences in the reflection of the ultrasound become even more noticeable. The reference audible sound signal S2 may be data of another subject preset in the device in advance, or it may be data acquired in the past by the same subject.

- In the above-mentioned other embodiment, sound modulation is performed to convert the magnitude of the acoustic impedance value into a high and low sound pitch, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, sound modulation may of course be performed to convert the magnitude of an acoustic parameter other than the acoustic impedance value (such as sound speed or attenuation) into a high and low sound pitch.

In the above embodiment, the sound modulation processing unit 31 of the audible processing circuit 27 performs sound modulation processing and then the time extension processing unit 32 performs time extension processing. However, the order of the processing may be reversed.

- For example, a program for determining whether the condition of the skin 51 is good or bad may be stored in the memory 26, and the condition of the skin 51 may be automatically determined based on the program.

1...Ultrasonic skin diagnostic device 25 as ultrasonic device...Controller 26 as modulation width changing means, elongation rate changing means...Memory 27 as storage means...Sound signal processing circuit 29 as signal processing means...Speaker 51 as sound output means...Skin 63...Stratum corneum S1 as surface layer of skin...Reflected wave signal S2...Audible sound signal R1...First region R2...Second region

Claims (5)

An ultrasound device that uses sound to indicate the condition of the skin,
a signal processing means for modulating the reflected wave signal of the ultrasound irradiated to the skin within a modulation width range set narrower than the human audible range to convert it into a high and low sound, and for extending the duration of the output signal in the time axis direction;
and sound output means for outputting, as an audible sound, the audible sound signal obtained through processing by the signal processing means. An ultrasound device that uses sound to indicate the condition of the skin,
an acoustic parameter signal conversion means for converting a reflected wave signal of an ultrasonic wave irradiated to the skin into an acoustic parameter signal indicating an acoustic parameter value in a depth direction of the skin;
a signal processing means for modulating the acoustic parameter signal within a modulation width range set narrower than the human audible range to convert it into a high and low sound, and for extending the signal in the time axis direction to extend the duration of the output signal ;
and sound output means for outputting, as an audible sound, the audible sound signal obtained through processing by the signal processing means. A reflected wave signal of an ultrasound wave irradiated to the skin or an acoustic parameter signal obtained by converting the reflected wave signal into a signal indicating an acoustic parameter value in a depth direction of the skin includes a first region corresponding to reflection from a surface layer of the skin and a second region corresponding to reflection from a layer deeper than the surface layer for a longer time than the first region,
3. The ultrasonic device according to claim 1, wherein the extension rate of the first region when the signal processing means performs extension in the time axis direction is set to be greater than the extension rate of the second region. 4. The ultrasonic device according to claim 1, further comprising: a modulation width changing means for changing the modulation width when the signal processing means performs sound modulation; and an expansion rate changing means for changing the expansion rate when the signal processing means performs expansion in the time axis direction. The ultrasonic device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, further comprising a storage means for storing the audible sound signal obtained through processing by the signal processing means.

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