As pacemakers are now used for a wide range of heart conditions, most of us know someone who has one of these life-saving medical devices. Hundreds of thousands of pacemakers are placed in patients in the US each year.
As the scope of disorders made treatable by such devices widens, that number is expected to increase. These battery-powered medical tools can be produced to regulate, or in some cases even restart the heart. Thanks to biotechnology we can now save lives with a small subdermal implant and its associated wire leads which deliver electrical stimulation to the heart.
Pacemaker technology has benefited from such high demand, and the devices have gone through an impressive evolution. This growth means that many of the beliefs about pacemaker technology are outdated as new generations have been introduced. In general, cardiac patients don’t need to think about their devices from day to day as they’re unlikely to encounter environmental interference as was once feared.
The above video goes further into depth about these life-saving implants and the different types of pacemakers currently available.
Sources: The Economist
