Patent ID: 7283872

Claim:
An implantable medical device (IMD) comprising: an atrial sensor; a ventricular sensor; a processor receiving data from the atrial sensor and the ventricular sensor and further including; a Ventricular Pacing Protocol module that operates in an atrial based pacing mode so long as an intrinsic ventricular event is sensed in a given cardiac cycle and only providing ventricular pacing in a cycle immediately subsequent to a complete cardiac cycle devoid of a sensed ventricular event; a monitoring module that determines an atrial rate; an atrial-ventricular (AV) delay module that determines an AV delay, wherein the processor determines whether the AV delay is appropriate relative to the determined atrial rate and if the AV delay is not appropriate the processor modifies a pacing parameter, wherein modifying the pacing parameter includes reducing an atrial pacing rate.