Life Support

Pacemakers

A pacemaker is a tiny contraption inserted beneath the skin of your chest or abdomen to help control irregular heartbeats. Using electrical pulsations, the pacemaker stimulates a normal heart rate. Pacemakers are utilized to treat heart rhythms that are too sluggish, rapid, or erratic. These are also known as arrhythmias. Symptoms associated with arrhythmias such as exhaustion and fainting may be alleviated by a pacemaker. Pacemakers also allow people with abnormal heart rates to lead a more energetic lifestyle.

Arrhythmias are caused by flawed electrical signals in the heart, and a pacemaker corrects this condition using slight electrical pulses. Pacemakers are employed for a variety of reasons including:

• Increasing the speed of a delayed heartbeat.
• Fixing an irregular and fast heartbeat (only implanted cardioverter defibrillator/pacemaker combination devices are capable).
• Verifying that the ventricles are contracting normally if the atria are palpitating as opposed to beating as expected. This disorder is referred to as atrial fibrillation.
• Synchronize the electrical signals between the upper and lower chambers of the heart.
• Synchronize the electrical communication between the ventricles (cardiac resynchronization therapy used to treat heart failure).

A pacemaker has the ability to keep track of the heart's electrical activity and tempo of the heartbeat. Recent model pacemakers can monitor blood temperature, respiratory rate, and other various factors in addition to correlating heart rate with changes in activity.

Pacemakers are either temporary or permanent; a temporary pacemaker is used to address short-term heartbeat abnormalities (e.g., lethargic heartbeat caused by heart attack, heart surgery, or a drug overdose). It is frequently used during urgent situations until a permanent pacemaker can replace it or until the temporary condition subsides. A patient with a temporary pacemaker will not be allowed to vacate the hospital until the device has been removed.

Arrhythmia is also treated with a tool known as an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). ICDs share similarities with pacemakers, but ICDs can generate stronger electrical pulses to treat more serious forms of arrhythmia.