The job of a pacemaker is to artificially take over the role of the heart’s natural pacemaker.
You may need a pacemaker because of the following:
- You have a particular type of electrical conduction block in the heart that can make the heart to beat too slowly. This can cause giddiness, breathlessness and sometimes blackouts.
- Your heart beats too fast, which is not effectively controlled by medication.
Normally pacemakers are kept just under the collar bone and has one or more leads coming from it. The leads are placed into the heart via a vein. The newer version of pacemaker is an advanced version which is called the leadless pacemaker (Micra) which is directly kept into the right lower chamber of the heart.
This pacemaker does not need any wire or battery to create a pocket like the normal pacemaker. This is done via a pinhole in the groin and a small device (which is smaller than a “AAA” battery) weighing <2 g is inserted directly into the heart and placed in position.
The advantages of leadless pacemaker are there is no wound or scar under the collar bone, no recovery period like wound healing, and patient can go back to normal life in a day or two. Also, since there are no wires or generator, there is no risk of pacemaker related infection.
The battery life can come to around 10-14 years and if a new pacemaker is needed in the future, another Micra can be placed inside the heart without removing the old one.
