Permanent pacemakers don’t mean “forever”

  Although the full name of the pacemaker is “permanent pacemaker”, it does not mean that it can be used for the rest of its life. The average life expectancy of a pacemaker is 7-10 years, and when the pacemaker battery is almost depleted, it needs to be replaced with a new one.  So how do you know the battery life of a pacemaker?  Patients who have already had a pacemaker implanted need to visit the hospital regularly for pacemaker programmed follow-up. Through the following programmable device, the pacemaker can communicate with the pacemaker in the body and learn about its own status and working condition.  For example, many parameters of the pacemaker (such as the impedance of the leads, the minimum voltage that can drive the heart to beat, etc.) are constantly changing, and it takes about 1-3 months for these parameters to become stable. In order to ensure the proper functioning of the pacemaker, the pacemaker output voltage is often adjusted to a higher value when the pacemaker is first implanted, but this will increase the power consumption of the pacemaker. Therefore, the patient needs to have a pacemaker programmed in the hospital within 3 months after the pacemaker implantation in order to obtain the stable parameters about the pacemaker, so that the most reasonable pacemaker operating mode can be set and the pacemaker operating time can be extended.  Patients need to visit the hospital for regular pacemaker monitoring in the 3rd month, 6th month, 1st year and then once a year after the implantation of the pacemaker.  In addition to ensuring that the heart is beating normally, the powerful pacemaker Jun is also a powerful ECG recorder, recording for much longer than a 24-hour ambulatory ECG, which allows various events of the heart to be recorded and analyzed. Of course, all this needs the help of a pacemaker programmer in order to be recognized by physicians. Regular pacemaker programmed follow-up is a necessary way to ensure that the pacemaker is working properly and to prolong its use.