Biomedical Instrumentation

Q2 (ii).

Q6 (i).
In 1959, Bernard Lown began research into a new method which involved charging capacitors to
roughly 1000 volts, which is then delivered to the patient as a heavily dampened sinusoidal wave
using paddle electrodes. The Lawn waveform was the standard for defibrillation until the late
1980s, when the method shifted to using a biphasic truncated waveform, also called a BTE
waveform. The basis for todays defibrillators is the BTE waveform combined with automatic
measurement of transthoracic impedance.