APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE DELIVERY OF NON-EXCITATORY CARDIAC CONTRACTILITY MODULATING SIGNALS TO A HEART

摘要

A method and device for controlling the delivery of cardiac contractility modulating signals to the heart are disclosed. The method includes applying electrodes to a heart, sensing electrical activity in a first cardiac chamber and in at least a second cardiac chamber to detect events within a cardiac beat cycle and applying a cardiac contractility modulating signal to the heart at or about the first cardiac chamber in response to detecting an event within an alert window time interval. The applying of the cardiac contractility modulating signal is inhibited in response to detecting one or more inhibitory events occurring within specific time intervals defined within a current beat cycle. The method also includes the ignoring of events associated with expected electrical artifact signals if they occur within the duration of specified time intervals, to increase the therapy efficacy. The artifact signals may be associated with pacing of a cardiac chamber or with detected far field sensed electrical artifacts due to intrinsic chamber activation. The timing of the various time intervals and of the cardiac contractility signal may be computed on a beat by beat basis by utilizing a plurality of parameter sets stored in the device and the timing of events detected in each beat cycle. A method for determining and setting the parameter sets in a test session is disclosed.