Just heard about PM induced cardiac myopathy. Pacing 100% since Feb., now getting winded w minimal exercise. Anyone have experience w this?. Going for echo next week.
Had a call the other day early in the morning, mid 70s male witnessed cardiac arrest in his living room. Pt had a recently implanted defibrillator and a pacemaker. Got on scene, no pulse, started CPR. First rhythm check was a paced rhythm. Throughout the arrest though, his internal defibrillator would go off, shocking the pt. There were further rhythm checks that seemed to be V-fib/v-tach, and I would defibrillate those, but there was also times where he would go back into a paced rhythm, but looked like vtach just with pacer spikes prior to every wide QRS. Our protocol states to treat pts with a defibrillator or pacemaker the same as a usual cardiac arrest, just don’t put the pads on the site of the implant. However, I’ve never ran a cardiac arrest in which the pt was being paced by a pacemaker and being defibrillated by his defibrillator. Ended up shocking the patient 6 times throughout the arrest, but the ED called it about 20 minutes after dropping him off. Anybody have experience running an arrest with a pt like this?
Up until now I have actually liked Raven...I have heart issues and have an Internal Cardiac Defibrillator (ICD), it is basically a pacemaker if I slow down and a defib if I arrest.
I understand the reality that implanted devices can be crazy on both your physical and mental health.
But...when she starts going on about how going through a metal detector will destroy her pacemaker, I lost all sympathy! I have gone through metal detectors, back scatter, etc... Multiple times a week with no concern, and my pacemaker is attached to my heart not stomach!
I have recently been at a conference, where they presented a cardiac pacemaker that utilizes a mechanical watch movement as a power source for a pacemaker Image. Today, cardiac pacemakers have a battery. When this battery is depleted, the pacemaker needs to be exchanged. Using a mechanical watch movement is an interesting approach to solving this problem and I thought you guys might enjoy reading about it. They used a ETA movement. And of course it is being developed in Switzerland :D Another possible solution is to use solar power (fascinating that enough energy gets through the skin). Both have been tested in pigs.
Sources: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/swiss-clockwork-heart-project/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/clockwork-heart
I know the higher "resting" potential is responsible for fast Na channels being closed and slow, leaking ones remaining open, but what makes the potential higher at "rest"?
I've read something about the being led inward rectifiers, but don't see how this would lead to that. Additionally, am I correct in saying that slow Na channels are open BECAUSE of the higher resting potential? If not, what's actually the difference between cardiac and pacemaker cells?
I'm an IT student who received an implanted ACP in September, and it has always made me curious if a pacemaker runs an embedded operating system due to the various functions such as communication and Bluetooth (which mine has, funnily enough). I'd love to imagine if they did, they would run some variant of Linux/UNIX. TIA for the answer!
