MEDICAL ACCESSORY PROXIMITY TESTING, DETECTION, AND ALERTING SYSTEM

摘要

Disclosed is a system having an implanted component and external component which are configured to provide a test of wireless communication in order to assess the success or failure of such communication and to store attributes related to such test in a memory log. To provide the communication test the implantable and external components can attempt wireless communication according to communication test parameters which relate to number of times to retry communication, duration of sending communication test signals, durations of waiting for communication test signals and the schedule of the communication tests. The schedule of tests may be period or may change over time in order to become more or less frequency according to a programmable schedule that may also decrease if the communication tests are successful and indicate patient compliance in keeping the external components close by. The communication tests can assist in determining if the patient is maintaining external components within a suggested proximity (e.g. 6 feet) of the patient and may assist to determine if transmission or reception difficulties are the source of communication failure. A physician programmer can provide for programming, conducting, summarizing and assessing the results of communication tests.

主权项

1. A medical device system for monitoring a condition of a patient that has an implanted medical device, the system comprising:
an external device comprising a transceiver, a random access memory, and a processor coupled to the transceiver and the random access memory, wherein the processor is configured to: periodically activate the wireless communication circuitry in an attempt to receive a plurality of proximity test signals from the implanted medical device; for each of the plurality of activations, determine whether a proximity signal has been received from the implanted device within a certain time after the activation, thereby generating a plurality of proximity test receipt results; apply a test to the plurality of proximity test receipt results to determine whether a proximity failure condition exists; operative when a proximity failure condition exists, take at least one of the following actions: store information regarding the proximity failure in the random access memory or send a proximity test failure condition notification.