Patent ID: 7826897

Claim:
A cardiac rhythm management device, comprising: pacing circuitry to deliver pacing pulses; control circuitry to schedule paces to be delivered by the pacing circuitry in accordance with a programmed pacing mode; interval detection circuitry to measure the interval between the times of a scheduled pace and a preceding delivered pace, the reciprocal of the interval being the pacing rate; counting circuitry to count the number of pacing pulses delivered over a specified time period and derive a pace count therefrom; monitoring circuitry to monitor the pacing rate and the pace count, wherein the monitoring circuitry is capable of operating in either a normal-rate zone or a high-rate zone; wherein, when operating in the normal-rate zone, the monitoring circuitry is configured to set an error flag if the pacing rate exceeds a specified normal-rate limit value; and, wherein, when operating in the high-rate zone, the monitoring circuitry is configured to set an error flag if either the pacing rate exceeds a specified high-rate limit value or if the pace count over the specified period of time exceeds a specified count limit value.