HOLTER, LOOP RECORDER, AND EVENT COUNTER CAPABILITIES OF IMPLANTED DEVICES

The current generation of cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardiover ter defibrillators almost all have some capabilites to store data rega rding device activity and patient events for future retrieval. This in formation may provide valuable information regarding device function a nd whether this is proving valuable in patient management. Examples in clude ''pace-sense'' counters, which can reveal under sensing of patie nt events, and serial lead impedance measurements, which are able to d emonstrate trends not seen on isolated measurements, Holter capabiliti es become vital in more advanced devices for documenting the utility o f, and fine tuning the programming of, features such as antitachycardi a pacing, rate-responsiveness, and mode-switching. Finally, the abilit y to store patient events as marker channels and even intracardiac ele ctrograms adds a diagnostic capability not available through external monitoring, This role has now been advanced by the development of a pu rely diagnostic implantable loop recorder.