NEUROLOGICAL MONITORING AND ALERTS

• US 20110201944A1
• Filed: 02/14/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cyberonics, Inc
• Original Assignee: Cyberonics, Inc
• Inventors: Harris, John F., Bland, Michael, Higgins, Jason A., Sheffield, W. Douglas, Leyde, Kent W., Himes, David M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,643,019 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/483
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4094 Diagnosing or monitoring seizure diseases, e.g. epilepsy
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/00 Electrotherapy; Circuits therefor A61N2/00 takes precedence; irradiation apparatus A61N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/0529 Electrodes for brain stimulation
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/37258 Alerting the patient
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation

Abstract

A system for providing alerts of neurological events occurring in a human subject is provided. The system includes: a monitoring module adapted to detect and sample a neurological signal; an event detection module coupled to the monitoring module for detecting one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal; and an alert module coupled to the event detection module, wherein upon the detection of a reportable event by the event detection module, said alert module selects a first alert contact from a plurality of contacts contained in a contact list, and generates a first alert communication to the first alert contact.

Claims

1. A system for providing alerts of neurological events occurring in a human subject, comprising:

a monitoring module adapted to detect and sample a neurological signal;

an event detection module coupled to the monitoring module for detecting one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal; and

an alert module coupled to the event detection module, wherein upon the detection of a reportable event by the event detection module, said alert module selects a first alert contact from a plurality of contacts contained in a contact list, and generates a first alert communication to the first alert contact.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said first alert contact comprises a telephone number.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said first alert contact comprises an electronic message address.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said first alert communication informs a recipient of the detected reportable event.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said first alert communication prompts a recipient to acknowledge receipt of the first alert communication.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein said first alert communication prompts the recipient to confirm receipt of the first alert communication via telephone keypress.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein said alert module is configured to select a second alert contact from the contact list if the receipt of first alert communication is not acknowledged, and to generate a second alert communication to the second alert contact.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein said alert module is configured to repeatedly select a new alert contact from the contact list and to generate a new alert communication to the new alert contact until receipt of one of the alert communications is acknowledged.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein said one or more types of predetermined reportable events comprise at least one of:

detection of a suspected seizure, detection of a suspected seizure that continues beyond a predetermined period of time, and detection of a suspected seizure that has occurred within a certain period of time since a preceding suspected seizure.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a therapy delivery module coupled to the therapy detection module, said therapy delivery module being configured to deliver a therapy to the subject upon detection of the reportable event.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the event detection module is wirelessly coupled to the monitoring module.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the event detection module is wirelessly coupled to the alert module.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the monitoring module is further configured to detect and sample one or more additional physiological signals; and

the event detection module is further configured to detect one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal and the detected one or more additional physiological signals.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the additional physiological signal comprises a cardiac signal.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitoring module comprises:

one or more leads, each lead having one or more contacts for collecting a neurological signal; and

electronic components for detecting and sampling the neurological signal, said electronic components being contained in an implantable housing.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the alert module comprises a processor configured to execute an event detection algorithm.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the processor is contained in the implantable housing.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the processor is contained in a patient-carried device external to the subject'"'"'s body.

19. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a communication module configured to transmit alert communications from the alert module to the plurality of contacts contained in the contact list.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein:

the communication module comprises a radio transceiver.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the radio transceiver is configured to transmit communications over a cellular network.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the radio transceiver is configured to transmit communications to a caregiver alert device carried by a caregiver.

23. A method for providing alerts of neurological events occurring in a human subject, comprising:

detecting a neurological signal from an ambulatory subject;

detecting one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal; and

upon the detection of a reportable event, selecting a first alert contact from a plurality of contacts contained in a contact list, and generating a first alert communication to the first alert contact.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein said generating the first alert communication comprises calling a first telephone number.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein said generating the first alert communication comprises transmitting an electronic message to a first electronic message address.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein said first alert communication informs a recipient of the detected reportable event.

27. The method of claim 23, further comprising prompting a recipient to acknowledge receipt of the first alert communication.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising prompting the recipient to confirm receipt of the first alert communication via telephone keypress.

29. The method of claim 27, further comprising selecting a second alert contact from the contact list if the receipt of first alert communication is not acknowledged, and generating a second alert communication to the second alert contact.

30. The method of claim 27, further comprising repeatedly selecting a new alert contact from the contact list and generating a new alert communication to the new alert contact until receipt of one of the alert communications is acknowledged.

31. The method of claim 23, wherein said one or more types of predetermined reportable events comprise at least one of:

detection of a suspected seizure, detection of a suspected seizure that continues beyond a predetermined period of time, and detection of a suspected seizure that has occurred within a certain period of time since a preceding suspected seizure.

32. The method of claim 23, further comprising delivering a therapy to the subject upon detection of the reportable event.

33. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

detecting one or more additional physiological signals;

wherein said detecting one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal comprises detecting one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal and the detected one or more additional physiological signals.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the additional physiological signal comprises a cardiac signal.

35. A system for providing alerts of neurological events occurring in a human subject, comprising:

a monitoring module adapted to detect a neurological signal;

an event detection module for detecting one or more types of predetermined reportable events based on the detected neurological signal; and

an alert module coupled to the event detection module, said alert module containing a plurality of predetermined alert types, each alert type being associated with one or more of the predetermined reportable event types;

wherein upon the detection of a reportable event by the event detection module, said alert module selects a first alert type from the plurality of predetermined alert types, said first alert type being associated with the type of detected reportable event, and said alert module generates an alert communication of the first alert type to an alert recipient.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the radio transceiver is configured to transmit communications to a caregiver alert device carried by a caregiver.

37. A method for providing alerts of neurological events occurring in a human subject, comprising:

monitoring a neurological signal using an implanted device;

analyzing the neurological signal to detect one or more types of predetermined reportable events; and

upon the detection of a reportable event, selecting a first alert contact from a plurality of contacts contained in a contact list and transmitting a first alert communication to the first alert contact.