Patent ID: 8255047

Claim:
A cardiac pacing system having a pacemaker and lead means for inter-connecting the pacemaker and the patient's heart, the pacemaker having pulse means for generating pacing pulses and control means for controlling the operation of the pacemaker, the lead means having electrode means for delivering pacing pulses to a patient's heart and for acquiring cardiac signals, the pacemaker having DSP means for amplifying and processing the cardiac signals acquired by the electrode means, and means for classifying the acquired cardiac signals, the DSP means comprising at least one DSP channel, the pacing system comprising: conversion means for converting the acquired and amplified signals to digital signals; digital filter means for filtering the converted signals to provide filtered signals; slope means for operating on the filtered signals to provide slope signals representative of the slope of the filtered signals; sense means for determining from the filtered signals and the slope signals whenever a cardiac event is detected, and the sense time of each detection; analysis window means for timing out an analysis window of predetermined duration following the sense time; parameter means for processing the filtered signals and the slope signals during the analysis window, and for generating a plurality of respective parameters from the signals; classification means for receiving the parameters from the DSP means and for classifying each signal as a function of the parameters, and monitoring means for determining and detecting whether each classified signal corresponds to a predetermined heart condition.