Rate-related tachycardia control pacemaker

摘要

There is provided an improved pacemaker for the control of tachycardia. After confirmation of the occurrence of tachycardia a burst of at least three stimulating pulses is generated. The time intervals between successive pulses decrease by a fixed decrement, and thus the pulse rate during each working cycle increases and the burst can be characterised more accurately as "tweet". The first pulse is generated after the last heart beat used for confirmation of the occurrence of tachycardia, specifically at a point in time which depends on the rate of heart beats in the tachycardia. The time delay between the last heart beat and the first pulse in the tweet is equal to the time interval between the last two heart beats minus the constant decrement which characterised the successive time intervals between the stimulating pulses. Since successive pulses are generated at an increasing rate and since the first pulse is generated at a point in time which depends on the tachycardia it is more likely that the tachycardia will be terminated.