Techniques are provided for detecting abnormal respiration within a patient based upon intracardiac electrogram (IEGM) signals or other electrical cardiac signals. Briefly, abnormal respiration is detected using a pattern recognition trained to discriminate normal and abnormal respiration based on morphological parameters and interval-based parameters extracted from the IEGM signals. In addition, techniques are described for distinguishing among different cardiac rhythm types within the patient while using one or more pattern classifiers or other pattern recognition devices.