Technical Details:
An object of this invention is to provide an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) system and/or method that is less painful to a patient than one or more conventional ICD systems/methods. Another object of this invention is to provide a flexible array including a plurality of electrodes for surrounding at least a portion of the heart, for use in an ICD system/method. In certain embodiments, individual electrodes in the array are selectively coupled to one another so that the electrodes may be electrically floating relative to one another during certain modes of ICD operation (e.g., heart monitoring modes) and electrically coupled to one another in other modes of ICD operation (e.g., shock modes). Another object of this invention is to utilize the flexible array described above in a manner such that when the individual electrodes are electrically coupled to one another, a type of Faraday cage (e.g., "quasi-Faraday cage") is formed around a portion of the heart. This quasi-Faraday cage at least partially (or even fully in certain embodiments) confines the defibrillation shock field to the heart itself so that the shock does not activate extracardiac muscle(s) and/or nerve tissue(s) in the surrounding chest. This enables the ICD system and/or method to be less painful than one or more certain conventional ICD systems/methods.
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Many people die yearly from sudden cardiac death. In the vast majority of these cases, the cause of death is ventricular tachycardia and/or ventricular fibrillation. Automatic implantable cardioverting/defibrillating devices have been developed and shown to be effective in preventing sudden cardiac death from these causes.
