Patent ID: 7330763

Claim:
A method of converting a personal digital assistant (PDA) into a controller device for an implantable medical device, the PDA comprising an operating system, the method comprising: installing a medical program on the PDA, the medical program allowing a user of the PDA to control operations of the implantable medical device; and installing a securing program on the PDA such that the securing program is executed on the PDA whenever the PDA is reset; wherein upon execution, the securing program is operable to modify the operating system of the PDA to secure the operating system to prevent interference with operations of the medical program by: (i) disabling a synchronization mechanism of the PDA that automatically synchronizes data with one or several other computing devices; (ii) changing operating system settings associated with hardware buttons of the PDA to prevent execution of previous operating system enabled functions associated with the hardware buttons; (iii) modifying an operating system menu to remove user access to selected operating system settings that permit user modification of assignment of functions to the hardware buttons; and (iv) disabling selected operating system enabled functions.