Biotronik Se Co. Kg

Burkhard Huegerich

Andrew B Kibler

Habib Homayoun

R Hollis Whittington

Madeline Anne Midgett

Min Qu

An implantable medical device for stimulating a heart, comprising a control unit, a memory unit, a stimulation unit for stimulating a cardiac region of a heart, and a detection unit for detecting an electrical signal of the heart. The memory unit comprises a computer-readable program that causes the control unit to perform the following steps: a) detecting capture thresholds during an observation period, each capture threshold detected in response to a sequence of pacing pulses delivered by the stimulation unit; b) storing the detected capture thresholds in the memory unit; c) determining threshold-to-threshold differences between two consecutive capture thresholds; and d) if a maximum determined threshold-to-threshold difference within the observation period is equal to or greater than a predetermined limit, adjusting a pacing output of the stimulation unit based on the maximum capture threshold determined within a first time period which is equal to or shorter than the observation period.

Implantable medical device for stimulating a human or animal heart

A medical system, comprising a plurality of devices forming nodes of a network, each device of said plurality of devices is configured to communicate with another device in a wireless fashion by receiving a message from another device in the network or by transmitting a message to another device in the network. A priority is assigned to each device, wherein as long as no other transmission of a message is ongoing in the network, each device is configured to initiate a transmission of a message by transmitting a start signal, wherein the higher the priority of the respective device, the higher the duration of the start signal allocated to the respective device. In case several devices in the network simultaneously initiate a transmission of a message by transmitting a start signal, a permission to transmit a message is automatically granted to the device in the network with the highest priority.

Body area network communication collision avoidance concept for medical systems

An implantable medical device, contains control circuitry and communication circuitry for communicating with another implantable medical device. The communication circuitry includes a transmission unit and a reception unit. The transmission unit, for establishing a communication link with the other implantable medical device, is configured to transmit a multiplicity of transmit communication signals, wherein each transmit communication signal is associated with a dedicated sub-range of a predefined frequency range. The reception unit is configured to receive a response communication signal in response to a transmit communication signal. The control circuitry is configured to determine whether a response communication signal in response to a transmit communication signal associated with a dedicated sub-range has been received, and to establish the communication link based on the determination.

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Portland, OR, United States of America

Burkhard Huegerich