Patent ID: 7697993

Claim:
A medical device programmer, comprising: a telemetry circuit adapted to communicate with an implantable medical device; a device identification device adapted to identify a device type of the implantable medical device using information received by the telemetry circuit from the implantable medical device, the device type indicative of one or more available operational modes of the implantable medical device; a user interface device including: a user-controllable programming mode switch configured to allow selection of a programming mode from a question-based programming mode and a parameter-based programming mode and allow the programming mode to be switched from the question-based programming mode to the parameter-based programming mode and from the parameter-based programming mode to the question-based programming mode during a programming session; and a screen including at least a question field and an answer field when the question-based programming mode is selected and a plurality of parameter value entry fields when the parameter-based programming mode is selected, wherein the user-controllable programming mode switch includes a programming mode change button displayed on the screen, the programming mode change button allowing the programming mode to be switched to the parameter-based programming mode when displayed during the question-based programming mode and switched to the question-based programming mode when displayed during the parameter-based programming mode; and a parameter generator coupled to the telemetry circuit, the device identification module, and the user interface, the parameter generator including an answer receiver to receive answers through the answer field of the screen and a parameter value receiver to receive parameter values through the parameter value entry fields and adapted to produce values for a set of operational parameters for the implantable medical device to operate in at least one operational mode of the one or more available operational modes using the received answers and the received parameter values.