Cardiac arrhythmia detection system for an implantable stimulation device and method
First Claim
1. An implantable cardiac arrhythmia detection system for detecting the presence of rhythmic and arrhythmic cardiac activity in a heart, the system including an implantable lead that transmits an electrogram signal from the heart, the system comprising:
- means, coupled to the implantable lead, for determining an average magnitude of the electrogram signal; and
means for detecting when the average magnitude exceeds a prescribed threshold, wherein a change less than a prescribed amount indicates the presence of rhythmic cardiac activity and a change greater than the prescribed amount indicates the presence of pathological arrhythmic cardiac activity in the heart.
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Abstract
A cardiac event and arrhythmia detection system and method detects arrhythmic cardiac activity or other information from an electrogram signal of a heart. The system senses the electrogram signal through an electrogram lead, preliminarily processes the signal, and converts it to a plurality of discrete digital signals, each of which represents the magnitude of the electrogram signal at a prescribed sample time. The discrete digital signals are applied to both a cardiac event detector and a morphology detector. The morphology detector detects selected changes in the morphology (shape) of the electrogram signal, wherein such changes automatically control the sensitivity (gain and/or threshold) used to detect cardiac events. The occurrence of a prescribed amount of change in the detected morphology over time indicates the occurrence of a prescribed arrhythmic cardiac condition.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. An implantable cardiac arrhythmia detection system for detecting the presence of rhythmic and arrhythmic cardiac activity in a heart, the system including an implantable lead that transmits an electrogram signal from the heart, the system comprising:
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means, coupled to the implantable lead, for determining an average magnitude of the electrogram signal; and means for detecting when the average magnitude exceeds a prescribed threshold, wherein a change less than a prescribed amount indicates the presence of rhythmic cardiac activity and a change greater than the prescribed amount indicates the presence of pathological arrhythmic cardiac activity in the heart. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for detecting the presence of rhythmic cardiac activity and arrhythmic cardiac activity, comprising the steps of:
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(a) sensing an electrogram signal; (b) determining an average magnitude of the electrogram signal; and (c) detecting a change in the average magnitude by a prescribed amount, a change less than the prescribed amount indicating the presence of rhythmic activity and a change greater than the prescribed amount indicating the presence of arrhythmic activity.
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Specification