Implantable ventricular cardioverter/defribrillator employing atrial pacing for preventing atrial fibrillation from ventricular cardioversion and defibrillation shocks

摘要

An implantable ventricular cardioverter/defibrillator (30) applies a quantity of electrical energy to a heart (10) for terminating a ventricular arrhythmia while preventing the induction of atrial fibrillation. The cardioverter/defibrillator includes a ventricular arrhythmia detector (82) and an atrial pacer (94) that delivers atrial pacing pulses to an atrium of the heart when the ventricular arrhythmia detector (82) detects a ventricular arrhythmia. A generator (166) applies a quantity of electrical energy to the heart (10) in timed relation to a delivered atrial pacing pulse to terminate the ventricular arrhythmia to avoid inducing atrial fibrillation. IMAGE