1. A system for interfacing with an implanted medical device, the system comprising: a microphone; a speech recognition circuit coupled to the microphone and adapted to recognize an audio signal from the microphone, the audio signal corresponding to one of a subset of commands from a set of commands and each command corresponding to a task to be performed on the implanted medical device, the speech recognition circuit further adapted to convert the audio signal into a selection code and match the selection code to one of the subset of commands; a display device; a processor arrangement coupled to the speech recognition circuit and to the display device, the processor arrangement configured to receive data indicative of an implanted medical device state and select the subset of commands as a function of the device state, the processor arrangement configured to display the device state data and the subset of commands, and generate a control signal in response to the selection code match; and a medical data processing instrument coupled to the processor arrangement and adapted to, in response to the control signal, execute the one of the subset of commands and to display data generated in response to execution of the one of the subset of commands.