APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR APPLYING CUTANEOUS SENSE STIMULUS

摘要

A device for promoting subject person~s awareness of a change of his/herposture, the awareness promoted by skin sensory stimulation produced based onposture change information (amount, direction, etc. of a positional change ofsubject person~s gravity center) from an apparatus for detecting a posturechange of the subject person. The device has stimulation-producing means(vibrators) for producing skin sensory stimulation and stimulation-controllingmeans for driving the stimulation-producing means based on the posture changeinformation. The control means has means for selecting vibrators, based on thedirection of a positional change of the gravity center, from the vibratorsarranged substantially parallel to the direction of a positional change of thegravity center, and sequentially drives the selected vibrators, for example,to the direction opposite the direction of a positional change of the gravitycenter. Further, the control means drives the vibrators so as to producesensory stimulation with strength corresponding to the amount of a directionalchange of the gravity center. The vibrators are installed on a foot bottom,waist, breast, etc. The device can accurately inform the subject person of achange of his/her posture to promote his/her action to maintain the posture.