Patent ID: 6246907
Filing Date: 2001-06-12
Classification: A61B,A61N

Abstract:
An external defibrillator that can be used to apply therapy to a patient, comprising:an electrode adapted to couple externally to the body of a patient;a sense circuit coupled to said electrode to sense a physiological signal of the patient indicative of intrinsic cardiac activity;a cardiac arrhythmia detector coupled to said sense circuit to detect an abnormal cardiac arrhythmia based on said physiological signal, said cardiac detector including a rate detector adapted to detect an intrinsic cardiac rate, said rate detector including an averaging element for averaging the intrinsic rate over several cardiac cycles to generate an average rate parameter, said averaging element includes a rate calculator adapted to determine a first average for a Predetermined number of cardiac events, said rate calculator being further adapted to determine a second average by dropping measurements related to one of said events, said second average being related to said cardiac rate, said abnormal cardiac arrhythmia being detected by using said average rate parameter;a microprocessor-based controller adapted to generate automatically a command in the presence of said cardiac arrhythmia; anda therapy delivery circuit adapted to deliver electrical therapy pulses to said patient to correct said abnormal cardiac arrhythmia in response to said command.