The present invention relates to anti-microbial, antiviral, fibers, and fabrics and to devices made from said fabrics. The invention has particular utility in connection with personal protective equipment (PPE’s) such as surgical masks and respirators, and will be described in connection with such utilities, although other utilities are contemplated, including, for example for forming air handling filters for people movers, i.e., automobiles, trucks, buses, trains, ships and planes, as well as for forming filters for air handling equipment for buildings.

A method for estimating an offset between a first group and a second group of contacts with respect to a longitudinal direction. Each group of contacts includes a plurality of electrodes arranged along a surface of a body of a lead. The method includes the steps of: (a) Selecting a number of electrode pairs, each electrode pair including an electrode of the first contact group and an electrode of the second contact group, and measuring the impedances between the electrodes of each selected electrode pair; (b) pre-conditioning the measured impedances for attenuating unwanted noise to generate pre-conditioned impedances, and (c) determining the lead offset using the pre-conditioned impedances.

A system for cosmetically treating a patient's skin or body with one or more EMS coils and/or RF electrodes mounted on a planar holder; a hydrogel containing gel pad, the gel pad being positionable between the holder and the skin tissue; wherein the gel pad being of a material that is biocompatible and conducts RF and/or EMS energy when EMS energy is applied from the one or more EMS coils; a programmable controller to activate the one or more EMS coils; the programmable controller, after the planar holder is applied to the skin tissue, being configured to activate one or more of the plurality of EMS coils to provide treatment in the form of stimulation to the skin tissue.

A method comprises acquiring a set of measurements of impedance of an implantable medical lead, determining a metric of variability of the set of impedance measurements, determining that the metric of variability satisfies a criterion, and generating a lead integrity alert in response to the metric of variability satisfying the criterion.

A system is provided that includes a first electrode configured to be located within a septal wall, and a second electrode configured to be located outside of the septal wall. The system also includes an impedance circuit configured to measure impedance along an impedance monitoring (IM) vector between the first and second electrodes. One or more processors are also provided that are configured to obtain impedance data indicative of an impedance along the IM vector with the first electrode located at different depths within the septal wall, the impedance data including a set of data values associated with different depths of the first electrode within the septal wall. The one or more processors are also configured to determine when the first electrode is located at a target depth within the septal wall based on the impedance data.

A patient monitoring system within an Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) device includes a patient monitoring channel including a first electrode and a second electrode, with each electrode coupled to a respective lead. The monitoring system also includes an Alternating Current source structured to inject a test current to the first electrode lead or the second electrode lead and a differential amplifier structured to measure differences between signals received from the first electrode lead and the second electrode lead. Related methods include evaluating a quality of an electrode contact with a skin surface by injecting a lead of the electrode and one input of a differential amplifier with a known electrical current, comparing a difference between an electrical signal received from the lead of the injected electrode as well as from a lead of a passive signal electrode, and evaluating the compared difference.

A treatment apparatus includes a motorized subsystem in a handpiece housing having a rotating output shaft, an axial cam driven in rotation by the output shaft, and a push rod linearly driven by the axial cam. A cartridge is removably attachable to the handpiece housing and includes a cartridge housing, a needle assembly, a piston in the housing engaging the needle assembly and linearly driven forward by the push rod, and a first biasing member urging the piston rearward.

Some embodiments relate to a method of testing a lead condition in an implanted cardiac device comprising a first defibrillation lead and a second non-defibrillation lead, the method comprising: measuring impedance between the first defibrillation lead and the second non-defibrillation lead by applying a test pulse; and determining a condition of at least one of the defibrillation lead and the non-defibrillation lead according to the measured impedance value.

An implantable medical device which performs the following steps during operation: a) performing a detection of whether the implantable medical device is in an implanted state; b) if it is detected that the implantable medical device is in an implanted state, activating a first diagnostic or therapeutic function of the implantable medical device, and subsequently activating a second diagnostic or therapeutic function of the implantable medical device, wherein the second diagnostic or therapeutic function is activated only after the fulfillment of at least one activation criterion selected from the group consisting of an elapse of a first time period from the activation of the first diagnostic or therapeutic function, an elapse of a second time period from the detection that the implantable medical device is in an implanted state, and a passing of a function test.

A patient-worn arrhythmia monitoring and treatment device includes a pair of therapy electrodes and at least one pair of sensing electrodes disposed proximate to the skin and configured to continually sense at least one ECG signal of the patient over an extended period of time. The device includes a therapy delivery circuit coupled to the pair of therapy electrodes and configured to deliver one or more therapeutic pulses. A controller coupled to therapy delivery circuit is configured to analyze the at least one ECG signal and detect one or more treatable arrhythmias and cause the therapy delivery circuit to deliver the one or more therapeutic pulses to the patient. At least one of the one or more therapeutic pulses is formed as a biphasic waveform delivering within 15 percent of 360 J of energy to a patient body having a transthoracic impedance from about 20 to about 200 ohms.