Telectronics Pacing Systems, Inc.

Peter M Nickolls

Richard M Lu

Kenneth A Collins

John P Wickham

David Bassin

Paul Lunsmann

Geoff Drane

Lucy M Cheatle

Roy M McCulloch

Robert Dodd

Brian Cleland

Tony Murphy

Steven Farrugia

Barry Flower

Hansen Yee

Megeurditch N Ansourian

An apparatus and a method are provided for coupling to a patient's heart for discriminating between tachycardias of physiological origin, and those of pathological origin having similar rates; and also for discriminating amongst those of pathological origin having similar rates. The apparatus includes transducers and/or sensing electrodes in either or both the atrium and/or ventricle. Also included are signal processing elements for determining the times of atrial and ventricular events and for extracting morphological features from the waveforms, and a neural network for classifying the heart rhythm. The method includes a step of discriminating between different types of heart rhythms having overlapping rates. The method utilizes atrial-atrial, ventricular-ventricular and atrio-ventricular intervals; integrated waveforms; sums of differences of waveform samples; rectified integrated bandpass filtered waveforms; numbers of zero crossings in the electrogram; area under the ventricular electrogram; and R wave slope, QR area and RS area of the electrogram.

Apparatus and method for discriminating between cardiac rhythms on the

A pacemaker system for a heart having an external muscle is used to control pacing of the heart during normal or even arrhythmic modes. In these modes, the muscle is stimulated synchronously with the heart to augment the heart's cardiac functions. When the heart undergoes ventricular fibrillation, the muscle is provided with a signal to cause the muscle to contract and expel blood from the heart chambers. Defibrillation shock is then applied to the heart to halt the fibrillation. The system is rendered more effective, safer and uses less power because the defibrillating energy is efficiently transferred to the heart muscles and not to the blood contained in its chambers. The system includes a microprocessor, muscle stimulating circuitry, defibrillation circuitry and an interface for exchanging signals between the microprocessor and the remaining components.

Cardio myostimulation system with defibrillation

An apparatus and method for the detection and treatment of arrhythmias using a processor having a neural network with a hierarchical arrangement including a first lower level for classifying individual waveforms, a second higher level for diagnosing detected arrhythmias and a third higher level for the application of therapy in response to a diagnosed arrhythmia. The neural network may be a back propogation neural network or an associative memory type neural network. The arrhythmias detected may be at least one of bradycardia, tachycardia and fibrillation. The apparatus may include a cardioverting/defibrillating pacemaker. In general, the apparatus acquires physiological signals representative of heart activity in a patient. A neural network receives the physiological signals and determines if any arrhythmia is present, and if present, selects therapy to be applied to the heart. A therapy generator then applies the therapy selected by the neural network. The physiological signals may be processed or unprocessed ECG signal, signals indicative of the properties of the blood including the presence of gases, blood temperature, and blood flow signals or signals representative of ventricular wall impedance or ventricular volume.

Apparatus and method for the detection and treatment of arrhythmias

An implantable device and method for treating cardiac arrhythmias in a patient's heart are disclosed. A source of antitachycardia pacing therapy and an electrode system including at least three electrodes for delivering the antitachycardia pacing therapy to the heart are provided. Circuitry and software for detecting a tachycardia having a site of focus in the heart and for determining the relative distances of the electrodes from the focus site are also provided. The three or more electrodes are connected to the source of antitachycardia pacing therapy based on the relative distances determined and in such a manner as to create a virtual electrode at the focus site upon delivery of the therapy to the heart.

Apparatus and method for antitachycardia pacing using a virtual electrode

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Sydney, Australia

Peter M Nickolls