Patent ID: 8135465

Claim:
A method for operating a cardiac pacemaker, comprising: sensing a ventricle; pacing a ventricle upon expiration of an atrio-ventricular escape interval initiated by an atrial event and stopped by a ventricular sense; measuring an intrinsic atrio-ventricular interval as the time between the atrial event and the ventricular sense during a cardiac cycle when no ventricular pace is delivered; after the cardiac cycle when no ventricular pace is delivered, decreasing the atrio-ventricular escape interval in a manner dependent upon the measured intrinsic atrio-ventricular interval as a mathematical function thereof, wherein the atrio-ventricular escape interval is decreased by computing a weighted average of the atrio-ventricular escape interval and the measured intrinsic atrio-ventricular interval multiplied by a scaling factor; and, after a cardiac cycle when a ventricular pace is delivered, increasing the atrio-ventricular escape interval.