Sulzer Intermedics, Inc.

Parick J Paul

Andre G Routh

Joseph W Vandegriff

Yves Verboven

Annette Bruls

Drury L Woodson, Iii

An implantable medical device for electrically stimulating the heart to beat including a sense circuit for detecting cardiac electrical activity. The sense circuit includes a sense amplifier, band pass filter, and threshold detector. The threshold detector determines whether sensed cardiac electrical activity resulted from a normal heart beat or an ectopic beat such as a premature ventricular contraction. In a preferred embodiment, latches in the threshold detector are activated by output pulses from a pair of comparators. A positive comparator produces an output pulse upon detection of cardiac electrical activity exceeding a positive threshold voltage and a negative comparator produces an output pulse upon detection of cardiac electrical activity more negative than a negative threshold. Threshold logic produces output signals indicative of which comparator first produced an output pulse. A logic and control unit monitors the output signals from the threshold logic and thus determines whether the associated cardiac electrical activity represented a normal heart beat or resulted from an ectopic beat so that appropriate pacing may be provided by the implantable device.

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Lake Jackson, TX, United States of America

Parick J Paul