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May 11, 2007

ipod

Pacemakers and iPods don’t play well together

Posted May. 11, ’07, 9:24 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iPod

iPods and pacemakersPacemakers and iPods are probably not two things you often think about in conjunction; we’re not talking peanut butter and chocolate here, after all. Turns out maybe that’s a good thing. At the annual meeting of the Heart Rhythms Society in Denver, 17 year old Jay Thaker presented a study on the effects of iPods on the electromagnetic telemetry features of pacemakers.

The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient’s chest for 5 to 10 seconds.
Man, this must have been a fun study to talk your patients into: “So, today we’re going to be messing with the device that keeps your heart beating.” In some cases, the interference caused the pacemaker to misread the heart’s pacing, and in one case, the pacemaker stopped completely. Thaker concluded that the interference could lead to physicians misdiagnosing heart function.

Thaker, whose father is an electrophysiologist, didn’t test devices other than the iPod (I’d suspect similar results). As I recall, the FCC is responsible for certifying that devices don’t cause harmful interference, though I’m guessing that they didn’t think to test it with pacemakers. The study’s senior author, Dr. Krit Jongnarangsin, said that more research was needed into the link. Thaker said he was also interested in studying the link between iPods and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs).

Fortunately for the moment, the intersection between iPod owners and pacemaker patients is relatively small, but it’s likely to only grow from here on out, so better that the link is investigated now.

[image via TechShout]


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