Implantable medical device with voice responding and recording capacity

• US 7,962,210 B2
• Filed: 05/19/2009
• Issued: 06/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/20/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Cardiac Pacemakers Incorporated (Boston Scientific Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cardiac Pacemakers Incorporated (Boston Scientific Corporation)
• Inventors: Zhu, Qingsheng, KenKnight, Bruce H., Daum, Douglas R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Layno; Carl H
• Assistant Examiner(s): MALAMUD, DEBORAH LESLIE
• Application Number:
  US12/468,648
• Publication Number:
  US 20090228058A1
• Time in Patent Office: 756 Days
• Field of Search: 607 1- 2, 607 4- 5, 607/9, 607/17, 607/18, 607 27- 28, 607/30, 607/32, 607 59- 60, 600/508, 600/513, 600/528, 600/586
• US Class Current: 607/32
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/3625 External stimulators
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/3627 for treating a mechanical deficiency of the heart, e.g. congestive heart failure or cardiomyopathy
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/37217 characterised by the communication link, e.g. acoustic or tactile
• CPC Class Codes: A61N 1/37247 User interfaces, e.g. input or presentation means

Abstract

An implantable medical device such as a cardiac pacemaker or implantable cardioverter/defibrillator with the capability of receiving communications in the form of speech spoken by the patient. An acoustic transducer is incorporated within the device which along with associated filtering circuitry enables the voice communication to be used to affect the operation of the device or recorded for later playback.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing at least one of pacing therapy pulses, cardioversion shock pulses, or defibrillation shock pulses to a heart using an implantable medical device (IMD);

producing digitized samples of acoustic energy received within a patient'"'"'s body using the IMD, wherein the acoustic energy has sufficient bandwidth to allow recording of the patient'"'"'s intelligible speech;

extracting speech information from the digitized samples;

decoding a voice command from the speech information;

recording, in response to the voice command, the digitized samples in a storage medium; and

transmitting the digitized samples to an external device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the recording includes storing the digitized samples using data compression.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the acoustic energy further includes heart sounds.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the acoustic energy further includes respiratory sounds.

5. The method of claim 4, including communicating stored samples of the respiratory sounds to the external device, wherein the external device is configured to correlate the stored samples of the respiratory sounds with patient symptoms.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein recording the digitized samples further includes activating the recording when a selected message is received through the acoustic energy.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein recording the digitized samples further includes activating the recording when detecting a physiologic event.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the physiologic event includes cardiac arrhythmia.

9. The method of claim 1, including correlating the recorded digitized samples of the acoustic signal with patient symptoms.

10. The method of claim 9, including:

sensing electrical activity of the heart;

recording digitized samples of the sensed electrical activity; and

correlating the recorded samples of the sensed electrical activity signal with the recorded digitized samples of the acoustic signal and the patient symptoms.

11. The method of claim 9, including:

sensing physical activity of the patient;

recording digitized samples of the sensed physical activity; and

correlating the recorded samples of the patient physical activity signal with the recorded digitized samples of the acoustic signal and the patient symptoms.

12. The method of claim 1, including generating an internal signal in response to detection of a physiologic event, and wherein the recording the digitized samples includes activating the recording upon generation of the internal signal.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein generating an internal signal in response to detection of a physiologic event includes generating the internal signal in response to detection of a cardiac arrhythmia.

14. The method of claim 1, including changing a pacing rate in response to the voice command.

15. The method of claim 1, including changing activation of a sensor dependent rate responsive feature of the IMD in response to the voice command.

16. The method of claim 1, including changing an operating mode of the IMD in response to the voice command.

17. The method of claim 1, including activating anti-tachycardia pacing in response to the voice command.

18. The method of claim 1, including:

applying a timestamp to the recorded digitized samples; and

wherein the transmitting includes transmitting the digitized samples and timestamp to the external device.

19. The method of claim 1, including band-limiting the acoustic energy to two kilohertz (2 kHz) or less.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein recording the digitized samples includes recording the digitized samples in response to the voice command and a magnet being placed in proximity to the device.