Pacing and defibrillation

Currently most implanted pacing and defibrillation systems monitor and treat inappropriate cardiac rhythms. In general, these inappropriate rhythms result in cardiac outputs that are inadequate to meet metabolic demands, and thus can be life-threatening. In order to best understand the function of such pacing and defibrillation systems, the underlying physiologic situations indicated for their use must also be defined and understood. Furthermore, as with the design of any biomedical device or system, a “first-principles” understanding of the appropriate physiologic behavior is a prerequisite to the definition of the performance characteristics of the device. This chapter primarily aims to provide a basic understanding of the physiologic conditions that require intervention with pacing and/or defibrillation systems, as well as introduce technical information on these systems to provide the reader with a foundation for future research and reading on this topic.