Oversensing and Undersensing of Implantable Cardiac Medical Devices Exposed to EMI

Oversensing and undersensing issues of Implantable Cardiac Medical Devices (ICMDs) are addressed in this paper. Particularly, an extensive experimental study has been performed in order to highlight that EMI affects ICMD sensing performances in correspondence of specific heartbeat status in terms of both frequency and amplitude. Experiments have been carried out on both a Pacemaker and an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator within an anechoic chamber. This guarantees a proper EMI injection, whose frequency has been chosen in accordance with ANSI / AAMI ISO 14117: standard 2012. In addition, such an environment also guarantees and appropriate shielding against external EMI sources, thus ensuring the reliability of the tests.