Patent ID: 8187164

Claim:
Apparatus for encompassing a patient's body tissue structure and for resiliently applying pressure to the encompassed tissue comprising: a plurality of bodies that can be disposed in an annular array around the tissue structure so that each of the bodies contacts the tissue; means associated with the bodies for resiliently attracting annularly adjacent ones of the bodies in the array to one another; means associated with the bodies for keeping an area encompassed by the bodies always open; and a plurality of links, each of which links extends only between a respective pair of the bodies that are adjacent to one another in the array, and each of which links is unconnected to any annularly adjacent link except by the body between that link and the annularly adjacent link, the link that extends between the bodies in each pair allowing the bodies in that pair to move apart in a direction that is annular of the array, and the link that extends between the bodies in each pair having at least one stop inside one of the bodies in that pair for stopping such movement apart of the bodies in that pair when those bodies have moved apart to an upper limit of such movement, the stop of each link that is inside one of the bodies being movable relative to that body.