Posts Tagged ‘cardiac’

It may come as somewhat of a surprise to find out that physicians don’t always think about defibrillator care when considering end of life issues, which can lead to very unpleasant experiences for dying patients. What do I mean? Well, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a device which can be inserted into patients who have heart rhythm problems. Its job is to shock the heart into proper rhythm when it goes astray. However, this may not be desired in someone who has made the decision to use hospice care in order to die as peacefully and pain-free as possible. If an ICD is not deactivated, it can go off repeatedly and deliver very unpleasant shocks to the patient. A study published in this month’s Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that most hospices don’t routinely speak to patients about defibrillator decisions, and nearly 60% of hospices had at least one patient shocked within the past year, sometimes multiple times at once. More surprisingly, only one in twenty hospices had a method to identify whether a patient had an implant or not. Defibrillators continue to be implanted at incredible rates (more than 100,000 a year). Therefore, doctors taking care of patients near end of life should be more aware and proactive in speaking to them about what their wishes are regarding deactivation of their ICD. [via AP News]

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A study from New York-Presbyterian Hospital in the current issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a journal of the American Heart Association, shows that American women’s awareness of heart attack symptoms remain just as poor as it was over a decade ago. In fact, only 53% of women said they would call 9-1-1 if they were having symptoms of a heart attack. The majority of women were also not aware of these common symptoms – only 56%  cited chest pain and neck, shoulder and arm pain, 29% shortness of breath, 17% chest tightness, 15% nausea, and 7% fatigue as signs of heart attack. However, it should be noted that women do not necessarily experience these same classic symptoms as the majority of men. A significant number of women will experience symptoms such as shortness of breath, weakness, unusual fatigue, cold sweat, and dizziness as major symptoms during a heart attack. So, as heart disease continues to remain the top killer of women in the US, it is evident that continued education directed towards awareness of heart attacks in women is very much needed. [via Medical News Today]

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Research presented this week at an American Heart Association conference warns of the potential dangers headphones can impose on implanted pacemakers and defibrillators. In a study of 60 people with these devices researchers found when headphones were about an inch from the device, interference was detected nearly one-fourth of the time — in four of the 27 pacemaker patients and 10 of the 33 with defibrillators. A pacemaker even reset itself in one patient. This interference occurs whether the headphone is plugged in or not. The reason this happens is because headphones, especially small earbud types, contain neodymium, one of the most powerful and concentrated magnetic substances. Dr. Kenneth Ellenbogen, a heart device expert at Virginia Commonwealth University and a spokesman for the heart association, said the solution is simple: “Keep your headphones on your ears and when they’re not on your ears, you shouldn’t put them over your chest or your pacemaker.” Although headphones are still safe to use, in general it is a good idea to keep small electronics at least a few inches away from any implanted cardiac devices.

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