Patent ID: 8798729

Claim:
A method of detecting clipping of ECG signals in a wearable medical device, the method comprising acts of: sensing an ECG signal of a patient using ECG sensing electrodes; amplifying the ECG signal using a first gain stage; conditioning the amplified ECG signal from the first gain stage using a programmable attenuation/gain stage; amplifying the conditioned ECG signal from the programmable attenuation/gain stage using a second gain stage; receiving and digitizing the amplified and conditioned analog ECG signal to provide a digitized ECG signal; monitoring the digitized ECG signal to detect clipping of the amplified and conditioned analog ECG signal based upon the digitized ECG signal; determining whether the clipping of the amplified and conditioned analog ECG signal occurred before or after the programmable attenuation/gain stage; and varying an amount of attenuation applied by the programmable attenuation/gain stage based on the digitized ECG signal responsive to determining that the clipping of the amplified and conditioned analog ECG signal occurred after the programmable attenuation/gain stage.