WEST AFFUM HOLDINGS DAC

A wearable medical system (WMS) includes a dongle having a cable, cancel switch, microphone, and processor. The processor determines, based on patient input, whether a shock criterion is met and, if met, causes an output device to provide a human-perceptible indication (HPI). After a preset delay following the HPI, the processor discharges stored electrical charge through a therapy electrode to deliver a shock to a patient if the cancel switch has not been actuated. If the cancel switch is actuated within the preset delay, discharge of the stored electrical charge is prevented.

In one embodiment, a method of alerting a user of a WCD is described. The method includes receiving an alert from the WCD on a remote device associated with the user and in communication with the WCD and transcribing the alert into a message for the user. The method also includes personalizing the message for the user and delivering the message to the user via the remote device.

Apparatus and methods for generating pulse pacing in a wearable cardioverter defibrillator (“WCD”). In one aspect the WCD circuitry includes a power source such as a battery coupled to a charger that provides charge energy to an energy storage module. Control circuitry is operatively coupled to the charger and the output circuitry, and configured to cause the WCD circuitry to generate pacing pulses delivered to therapy electrodes (attached to an ambulatory patient) without a current source. The WCD circuitry includes one or more processing elements that are used to execute instructions provided by one or more software modules that are configured to support various functionality, including controlling generation of pacing pulses.

In one embodiment, a method to track the cardiac health of a patient is described. The method includes connecting to at least one motion sensor configured to sense movement of a patient and receiving motion data from the at least one motion sensor. The method further includes monitoring an activity level of the patient based at least in part on the motion data and detecting a change in the activity level of the patient based at least in part on the motion data. The method also includes altering a monitoring status of the cardiac health of the patient for a predetermined period of monitoring time based at least in part on the change in activity level.

A Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillator (WCD) system comprises an electrode assembly with a permeable ECG electrode and a moisture barrier. In some embodiments, the moisture barrier is configured to reduce drying out of the permeable ECG electrode to improve performance of the WCD system. In a further enhancement, some embodiments of the electrode assembly also include a pillow structure positioned on a non-skin-contacting surface of the electrode assembly to comfortably reduce movement artifact or noise in the received ECG signal.

A wearable medical monitoring (WMM) system may be worn for a long time. Some embodiments of WMM systems are wearable cardioverter defibrillator (WCD) systems. In such systems, ECG electrodes sense an ECG signal of the patient, and store it over the long-term. The stored ECG signal can be analyzed for helping long-term heart rate monitoring of the patient. The heart rate monitoring can be assisted a) by special filtering techniques that remove short-term variations inherent in patients' short-term heart rate determinations, and b) by indication techniques that indicate when conditions hampered sensing of the ECG signal too much for a reliable heart rate determination.

Embodiments of a wearable monitoring device system can include a wearable monitoring device comprising one or more patient physiological sensors and a detector to zonelessly detect arrhythmias from physiological signals sensed by the one or more sensors, and optionally other signals. In embodiments the detector includes a processor configured with a sudden rate change onset (SRCO) algorithm, one or more arrythmia detection algorithms and, optionally, a noise detection algorithm. In embodiments, in response to detecting SRCO, the wearable monitoring device or a remote system that receives data from the wearable medical device determines whether the patient has an arrhythmia from physiological signals sensed by the one or more sensors.

In one embodiment, a method to detect noise levels in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals is described. The method includes connecting to at least three sensing electrodes and obtaining a signal from each of the at least three sensing electrodes. The method also includes defining at least three channels between the at least three electrodes. The method includes calculating a morphological similarity value of at least one combination of the at least three channels based at least in part on the obtained signal from each of the at least three sensing electrodes and determining a noise level based at least in part on the calculated morphological similarity value.

Embodiments of a wearable cardioverter defibrillator (WCD) system include a support structure for wearing by an ambulatory patient, a posture detector and at least one processor. When worn, the support structure maintains electrodes on the patient's body, and using the posture detector and the patient's ECG received via the electrodes, the processor determines the patient's posture, formulates posture-based templates of QRS complexes, and the patient's heart rate. The processor can use these determinations to distinguish between VT and SVT and make no-shock, and shock decisions.

“Artificial Intelligence” or “AI” technology can be applied to Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators (“WCDs”) and other wearable medical equipment in various ways, including garment fitting and adjustment, analyzing electrocardiogram (“ECG”), other sensor data and/or other patient data in real time to detect/assess the patient's present condition and/or need for treatment for cardiac and other conditions (e.g., stroke, coughing, apnea, etc.), detect imminent failure of the wearable medical device components, capture and report data collected from the patient for presenting to clinicians, adjust thresholds for alarms and notifications based on patient's responses, improve patient compliance based on the patient's past non-compliant behavior and actions that resulted in the patient becoming compliant, provide tests to the patient, and learn the patient's responses to detect/assess the patient's present condition and/or need for treatment.