The New Wave of Electronics for Your Heart

Learn about how the landscape has shifted when it comes to heart health and technology.

Remember the first time you stepped into someone's house and saw their flat screen TV? Or your first friend who pulled out a "phone" with no buttons? You probably wondered, how does it work? How can THAT do what the old thing did? And crucially: does it really work?? Time has answered those questions beyond a shadow of a doubt, as we now take those things for granted.

Healthcare has experienced a similar trend, nowhere more so than in devices that improve heart health. Pacemakers, electronic devices that are sometimes needed when issues with the heart’s electrical system occur, used to be the size of a Mickey Mouse alarm clock and were often only implanted as a "last resort." These days pacemakers come in a variety of options, and they are becoming smarter, more automated, safer, and even more impressive in their capabilities.

Pacemakers

The traditional pacemaker, like a camera with film (remember those?) is on its way out. The new wave of pacemakers plugs into the circuits your heart already knows and loves. The pacemaker battery that powers this amazing system is about the width of a silver dollar. This little device knows what to do as soon as it arrives in your body. It can talk to your doctors without you ever having to leave your house. It can sense how active you are and give you heart beats in multiple heart chambers, personalizing your care based on sophisticated internal algorithms. For some patients, it can actually improve heart function, reduce symptoms of heart failure and even extend lifespan by restoring the heart's natural synchrony.

There are multiple options available these days for pacemakers, which can feel overwhelming. It’s important to have a conversation with your provider about the different options so together you can determine the one that best fits your individual needs.

Defibrillator

The innovation in heart health doesn't stop with pacemakers. For patients who need protection from the most dangerous rhythms, we can now offer a defibrillator that doesn't have to touch your heart to work. Like a traditional defibrillator, this device can detect your heart beats, determine with high accuracy what heart rhythms might be dangerous, and then deliver life-saving treatment like what a paramedic might do in an emergency. Implanted defibrillators don’t have to wait for someone to call 911 or for the ambulance to arrive, and that’s why they can save lives. Patients can now get defibrillators implanted without needing wires to go inside the heart and worry if the wires might come loose. This means after getting their defibrillator patients can be more active than ever before. Talk to your doctor about available options to best fit your needs and lifestyle.

Patients have been receiving these devices for years at other centers but not yet in our community. At the Rutland Heart Center, our goal is to introduce this new technology to anyone who can benefit from it, and hopefully it can feel as “normal” as a smart phone. With technology moving so fast, we need to harness what it can offer while striving to keep our humanity closer than ever before.

By Daniel B. Ambrus, MD, Electrophysiologist at Rutland Heart Center, a clinic of Rutland Regional Medical Center.