Patent ID: 6408207
Filing Date: 2002-06-18
Classification: A61N

Abstract:
Device for maintaining or reestablishing a natural heart rhythm by generating an electrical stimulation signal, in particular a device in the form of an implantable heart pacemaker that displays at least one sensor arranged inside the patient's body for picking up a body-specific signal containing information concerning demand for heart performance, or another magnitude relevant to the heart, characterized by the fact that:connected downstream to the sensor is a processing unit that obtains from the measurement signal a body-specific rhythm signal whose periodicity is equal to or greater than the periodicity of the breathing activity, and thus lies above the periodicity of the heart activity, whereby the body-specific rhythm signal forms a control signal that influences the stimulation signal; and selected in the processing unit within a time segment of a predetermined duration and comprising at least several seconds is at least one periodically-appearing signal or a corresponding signal portion having a characteristic amplitude response or frequency pattern, and that the body-specific rhythm is derived from the succession of the appearance of this pattern, which body-specific rhythm influences the time sequence and/or the point in time of the stimulation signal, the sequential time segments displaying a predetermined interval that corresponds to the expected perodicity of the rhythm.