The Lead-Up To Today
This advancement in lead design in the late 1960's and 1970s significantly reduced lead oversensing and musculoskeletal muscle twitching with pacing.
Bipolar leads
Measured from a P-wave to an R-wave, this interval on a surface ECG represents the delay between atrial and ventricular contraction; dual-chamber pacemakers mimic this natural delay using an AV interval.
Extra 100 points if you give the "normal range" for this interval
PR interval
120-200 ms
This single-chamber discriminator compares the baseline narrow QRS complex in normal sinus rhythm against the wide QRS waveform seen during tachycardia to distinguish supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) from true ventricular tachycardia (VT).
Morphology/ Wavelet
After being oxygenated, the blood will enter this chamber of the heart to prepare for its journey through the entire body.
Left Atrium
Expressed in ohms this measurment is used to describe total opposition to electrical current flow in a pacing system.
Lead Impedance
Founded by Alfred E. Mann in 1969, this pioneer of rechargeable and programmable pacemakers was acquired by Siemens, then St. Jude Medical, and is today part of Abbott Medical.
Pacesetter
This refractory period has been specifically designed to eliminate the inappropriate sensing of the electrical recovery and relaxation phase of the ventricles.
VRP
Because sinus tachycardia accelerates gradually during exercise whereas ventricular tachycardia typically begins abruptly, ICDs measure interval-to-interval acceleration using this discriminator algorithm.
Onset
The ostium of these veins are common locations for atrial fibrillation ablations.
Pulmonary Veins
Medtronic’s trade name for its ventricular auto-threshold technology, which measures the evoked response beat-by-beat to continuously adjust energy output, is known by this compound name.
Capture Management
Originally founded in 1969 as Medi-tech, Inc. to manufacture steerable catheters, this major cardiovascular device maker adopted its current geographical name in 1979.
Boston Scientific
This interval represents the timing from a ventricular event (paced or sensed) to the next sensed or paced event in the Atrium.
VA interval
Atrial fibrillation rapidly conducted to the ventricles produces highly irregular V-V intervals, whereas true ventricular tachycardia is typically rhythmic; ICDs measure cycle length variance using this parameter.
Stability
This vein is commonly used to house quadripolar leads where their main responsibility would be RV and LV timing.
Coronary Sinus
Measured in millivolts (mV), this electrical parameter reflects the amplitude of intrinsic cardiac signals (P-waves or R-waves) detected by the lead to prevent oversensing or undersensing.
Sensing threshold/ Intrinsic Amplitude
This decade could be considered a "golden decade" with progress in device reprogramming capabilities.
1970's
An intrinsic R wave is noted 350 ms after an AP. If AVD's are programmed to 200/250ms (SAVD/PAVD), this algorithm is likely on in this Medtronic Device.
MVP
In dual-chamber ICDs, detecting more atrial events than ventricular events (A > V) along with irregular ventricular intervals typically leads the device to diagnose this common atrial arrhythmia rather than VT.
Atrial fibrillation or AFL
Located in the wall of the atrium near this major vein, we find a specialized cluster of cardiac cells that act as the heart's primary natural pacemaker.
Superior Vena Cava
It is not possible to program ICD leads to this configuration due to the likelihood of inappropriate therapies due to oversensing.
Unipolar
In October of this year, Swedish surgeon Dr. Åke Senning at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm implanted a cardiac device into 43-year-old patient Arne Larsson.
1958
This interval can be calculated by adding the AVD & PVARP and is defined as the interval where an AVD will NOT be initialized.
TARP
Considered the gold standard hallmark for true VT in dual-chamber algorithms, this condition is declared when the ventricular rate exceeds the atrial rate (V > A) or when atrial and ventricular rhythms show complete independence.
AV dissociation
What artery related to the heart has a unique anatomical claim where proximally it faces cardiac physiology and distally it faces pulmonary oxygenation.
Pulmonary Artery
This type of directional cardiac electrical conduction can be measured in ms and used to help program PVARP to eliminate device mediated loop tachycardias.
Retrograde conduction