Pacemakers Allow Millions to Live Life to the Fullest
I always thought that pacemakers were for old people or people that had really serious heart conditions. My opinion of that drastically changed last summer after my then eighteen year old friend had to have one implanted. I never new how pacemakers worked or what they did, I just knew that you could not ride roller coasters if you have one.
My fascination with pacemakers all started last summer. It was right after graduation and my friends and I were all enjoying the summer. Then during the early hours of June 4th I received the scariest call ever. My friend Mike called and said that Brian's heart stopped beating and he was being rushed to the hospital. I immediately threw on some shoes and headed out the door. The whole way to the hospital I kept thinking, what happened? Brian was one of the healthiest people that I know. He worked out a lot and always ate right. He was in perfect shape. When I reached the hospital I met up with Brian's family and our friends. No one knew what happened and even the doctors still weren't sure what caused Brian's heart to stop. We spent the whole night praying and waiting for a miracle. I remember the day like it was yesterday, we just had prom and graduation and then here Brian was lying in a hospital bed unconscious. I just couldn't understand, the doctors speculated that it might have been from alcohol or drugs but Brian would never do that. Then they thought that maybe he had a seizure caused by a brain aneurysm, but that still wasn't right. To this day we still do not know what caused his heart to stop. Anyways, the doctors thought that Brian should have a pacemaker/defibrillator implanted so if this scary event reoccurred again his heart would start automatically. I did not understand what a pacemaker was but I was for anything that would help prolong my best friend's life. The pacemaker was implanted a few days before Brian was supposed to leave the hospital and he returned home after just two days recovery. After that he took it easy for a few months, and then was back to his normal old self. I did not know what a pacemaker did until about a month ago when we had to choose a research topic.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement or TAVR is the latest technology used principally for the treatment of aortic stenosis, a condition in which one of the major valves of the heart, the aortic valve, becomes tight and stiff, usually as a result of aging (3). Since many patients who need aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis are too sick to undergo major valve replacement surgery, they are unable to get the treatment they need. With the transcatheter aortic valve, this issue is bypassed because this valve can be implanted in the heart by accessing the patient’s heart through an artery in the groin. The valve can be inserted through a wire that can be pushed to the heart and the old valve is simply pushed to the side when the new valve is implanted. This technology has been in use in the US with Edwards’ Sapiens valve since 2011 and has saved the lives of many patients with aortic stenosis (4). Medtronic’s CoreValve uses similar technology and has won patent fights in Europe and has been in use internationally. However, within U.S., Medtronic has not been...
Cochlear implants are amazing feats of biomedical engineering, and have helped many people regain the ability to hear. While there are some ethical dilemmas that go along with them, there is no denying just how amazing these implants really are. By understanding how the ear works, what causes it to stop working, and using science and engineering to fix that problem, there is now a way to give someone a sense they might have never been able to experience. It can be costly, but it could drastically change someone’s life. Some people may say for worse, but there will always be someone else to say it was for better. Overall, cochlear implants are an incredible invention and will continue to grow and only get better with technology.
One of Horatio Alger’s books was called Ragged Dick or Street Life in New York, this book featured a young boot black named Dick Hunter and his friend Henry Fosdick. Dick in the beginning is living on the street and is never sure where he will sleep from one night to the next. He is fairly happy but wishes to be respectable. One day he offers Mr. Whitney, a businessman, to show his nephew, Frank, around New York City because Mr. Whitney is too busy to do it himself. After this day Dick’s life begins to change from a boot black with an uncertain life to a clerk who rents a room and earns ten dollars a week.
The development of the artificial heart began in the early 1950’s. The initial prototype, developed in 1970’s by the artificial developmental staff at the University of Utah, allowed 50 hours of sustained life in a sheep. Although this was called a success, the implantation of the artificial heart left the sheep in a weakened state. It wasn’t until late 1970’s and the early 1980’s where the improvement of the artificial heart actually received attention as a possible alternative to a heart transplant. The remodeled product of the early 1970’s did more than just the 50 hours of sustained life; it enabled the cow to live longer and to live a relatively normal life, with the exception of a machine attached to the animal.
Cardiac monitoring has been available since the early 1960s (Henriques-Forsythe, Ivonye, Jamched, Kamuguisha, Olejeme & Onwuanyi, 2009). George, Walsh-Irwin, Queen, Vander Heuvel, Hawkins, & Roberts (2015) explain, “Remote telemetry monitoring is the monitoring of cardiac rhythms of acute care inpatients from a central locate by personnel who are not directly involved with patient care” (p. 11). Researchers and authors published a multitude of articles, best practices, and standards for hospital monitoring (Drew, 2004, Funk, 2010). A basic internet query reveals injuries and deaths related to remote telemetry monitoring. Guidelines, best practices, and research provide the best evidence in the delivery of safe quality care
First of all we need to understand the type of technology this device represents. Is this a sustaining innovation? Or is this a completely new disruptive product? After fully understanding this aspect we can make better decisions regarding the future of the firm and its product. This device offers many benefits that current products do not. As explained earlier, this device is extremely portable, offering emergency rooms the flexibility and convenience they seek to provide patients with the best treatment possible. Likewise, this product will come in at a price point much lower than current echocardiographies, further separ...
In the early 1950s, the first ever amazing invention of an external cardiac Pacemaker was developed by Dr. John Hopps. It was large (about 30 cm long, and several centimetres high and wide), the pulses were generated by vacuum tubes and the entire unit was powered by 60 Hz household current.(The Pacemaker) Hopps was an electric engineer appointed by the National Research Council of Canada in 1941 after training at the University of Manitoba as an electrical engineer. Pacemakers helped with the pumping of blood by sending electric signals but it occupied too much space. John Hopps was recognized as “The Father of Biomedical Engineering”. "The financial cost of the pacemaker was minimal" which made the pacemaker even popular and appealing as a weapon to treat problems in rhythm of the heart. (Drew)
The placement of implantable chips into patients for the purpose of accurately identifying patients and properly storing their medical history records has become a subject of a strong debate. Making sure patients are properly identified before a procedure and storing their health history records for future use has been difficult, if not impossible. The idea of being able to retrieve accurate patient’s medical history for a follow up care without relying on patient’s memory is a challenging task for many healthcare organizations. Many ideas and technologies have been introduced over the years to help solve this problem, but unfortunately the problem is still not fully resolved. There are still many errors in the healthcare due in part by improper record keeping and inaccurate patient identification. One idea that has being in discussion to eliminate these problems for good, is the introduction of a chip or radio frequency identification (RFID) technology implanted into human for the purpose storing medical data and accurately identify patients. VeriChip Corporation is currently the maker of this implantable RFID chip. They are the only corporation cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make this implantable radio frequency transponder system for humans for the purpose of identifying patients and storing their health history information. The chip was first developed for the use of radar systems by Scottish physicist, Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt in 1935 just before World War II. (Roberti, 2007). This technology helps identify approaching planes of the enemy from mile away. Today, RFID has several uses. It is used for animal tracking. It is attached to merchandise in stores to prevent theft. It can be instal...
What I wanted to talk about today is this life save device called a automated external defibrillator. It has become the number one way to resuscitate a person who has had a cardiac arrest unwitnessed by emergency medical services and who is still in persistent ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Many people have played a big role in creating this device to become more efficient, smaller and easier to use for the general public. Here are just to name a few that played a part in the creation for this device: Claude Beck, James Rand, Paul Zoll, and Frank Pantridge. The first use of a defibrillator on a patient was in 1947 on a 14 year old boy. Claude Beck was performing a open-chest surgery when the boy went into fibrillation. Beck manually massaged his heart for 45 minutes until the arrival of the defibrillator. The defibrillator he used during surgery was made by James Rand and had silver paddles the size of large teaspoons. In 1956, Paul Zoll performed the first successful external defibrillation with a more powerful defibrillator. A major breakthrough in emergency medicine occur in 1965. At the time a majority of coronary deaths occurred outside of the hospital setting since defibrillator required a main power source and were only available in hospitals it made them pretty much useless in saving lives outside of a hospital setting. Frank Pantridge often referred to as the Father of Emergency Medicine, made the first portable defibrillator in 1965. This device was power by a car battery and weighted approximately 70 kg (155 lbs). By 1968 he was able to create a defibrillator that was safer to use and only weighted 3 kg (6-7 lbs). It was argued that their was a possibility of misuse of the device if given to a unt...
David’s rehab center on 32nd. So they sent her off to that facility. The whole family agreed that would be great, so she would be able to gain her mobility back. It's February now and after doing all of the therapy my grandmother would be coming home Friday, February the 12th, wow this felt like the worse was coming to an end and she was coming home tomorrow morning. But God had other plans, we had got a call that Friday morning at 3:45 am saying that heart had stopped and that it was unknown how long she had been down, they said it took them ten minutes to get a pulse started and they battled for an hour to stabilize her heartbeat. This was it. She’s gone. But we have to keep the faith when we arrived at the hospital she had only been stable for about five minutes. This to us already was tragic news they had her on a ventilator, which is also known as life support. We knew that at this point in time the lady that was holding the family together was now holding on to her life. The doctors told us that the worst case scenario she could be brain dead, they ran the test and finally found out why her heart stopped. My grandmother had had a pulmonary embolism which is a condition when one or more arteries in the lungs are blocked by a blood clot. This embolism caused her heart to stop. The cooled her body temperature all the way down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit to protect her brain. When they did the CAT scan they revealed that she was, in fact, brain dead and without the machine she wouldn’t
A week before Christmas in 2013, my stepfather suddenly lost consciousness. His body stiffened and he began to violently convulse – he was having a seizure. Later in the hospital, the doctors informed us that my stepdad had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. The anguish that I felt that night was eased by a nurse who talked to my family about my stepfather’s condition and assured us that the hospital would do everything that they can to assist him with recovery. The next few weeks were filled with uncertainty as my stepdad laid comatose, no knowledge of when or even if he would wake up. During that time, my interactions with the nurses always made me feel safe and comforted Unfortunately, he passed away in January 2014. Though this was a traumatic and life altering experience, what I remember most are the nurses that provided care to my stepfather. They went above and beyond their outlined job duties to care for my loved one and to make my family feel secure even in such a difficult time.
Lidwell and Edgar H. Booth invented the first pacemaker. It was a portable device that consisting of two poles, one of which included a needle that would be plunged into a cardiac chamber. It was very crude, but it succeeded in reviving a stillborn baby at a Sydney hospital in 1928. The decades that followed, inventors came up with increasingly sophisticated versions of the pacemaker. However, these devices; which relied upon vacuum tubes; remained heavy and bulky, affording little or no mobility for patients. Colombian electrical engineer Jorge Reynolds Pombo developed a pacemaker in 1958 weighed 99 lbs and was powered by a 12-volt auto battery. Surgeons at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden were the first to place a fully implantable device into a patient in 1958. Rune Elmqvist and surgeon Ake Senning invented this pacemaker, which was implanted in the chest of Arne Larsson. The first device failed after three hours, the second after two days. Larsson would have 26 different pacemakers implanted in him. He died at the age of 86 in 2001, outliving both Elmqvist and Senning. In the world there are many heart attacks and as people grow they can get abnormalities in there heart(Medlineplus). When someone 's heart stops working it can be fixed with a pacemaker, it makes the heart beat properly. The artificial pacemaker is a wonder of modern science. A small, implantable device that regulates a human heartbeat through electrical impulses have saved millions of lives. The development of this vital medical device owes much to the advances in electronics and communications brought about by the Space Age.Pacemakers may be used for people who have heart problems that cause their heart to beat too slowly. A slow heartbeat is called Bradycardia two common problems that cause a slow heartbeat are sinus node disease and heart block. When your heart
There are millions of questions that are begging to be answered, and I have the drive to find the answers to them. There could be a vaccine for cancer just waiting to be found in the world, and I could be the one to find it. Paraplegics could be able to walk again, and I could be a part of their recovery. Not only would I be influencing the world, but I would also be influencing distinct human lives. My experience with volunteering in schools and crisis centers has taught me about the value of lives. I’ve come to deeply appreciate the fact that every person experiences the world as vividly as I do, meaning that they share the same feelings, from love, anger, sadness, down to pointless and sporadic thoughts and emotions. This makes me further respect the work of those who work in the medical field, as they make impacts larger than I can imagine. I know that if I were in the place of someone whose life depended on the innovations in science and technology, my existence would be highly influenced by any doctor who even simply hopes to make advancements in
Some treatments can be used. An electronic pace-maker can be inserted and it will send electronic impulse to the heart stimulating it to beat at a normal rhythm. Pace-makers are only inserted when the heart beats too slow. Tachycardis can also be very serious. It can lead to disabling symptoms and even death.
The phrase “Nobody is perfect” is appropriately accurate since there are many people who are born without arms, legs, or eventually develop organ failure. Bioengineering helps the people living without or damaged tissues and organs to live a better and comfortable life. Bioengineering will help advance and improve the health of humans by applying biology in engineering. Imagine a world without sick people, or people with deformity. This may be hard to imagine, but with the remarkable inventions and solutions developed and produced by bioengineers, this scenario we can currently only imagine in our heads will hopefully eventually become an ordinary norm. It is crucial to help people who were born with a body that restricts them from doing something everyone else can. They deserve to be able to move and be able to do tasks like every other human being.