Patients Talk

Pacemaker Patient “Tunes Up” His Activity Level

What is a blended sensor?

In the normal heart, when you get up and perform an activity, like gardening, your heart automatically senses that more oxygen is needed to fuel the extra effort. It begins beating faster to accommodate the walking, bending, lifting, and other physical tasks you may be doing. You may not even be aware of this natural increase and decrease in your heart rate.

If you are under age 65, you may get your heart rate above 90 beats per minute about 175 times per day. If you are over age 65, you still may get your heart rate above 90 beats per minute over 150 times per day¹.

This normal function is lost when the heart’s electrical activity doesn’t work properly and the heart is not able to automatically respond to changes in activity. This is called chronotropic incompetence.

The sensors in your pacemaker help restore the responsiveness of your heart rate so that you can resume most everyday activities. This is called rate-responsive or adaptive-rate pacing. Types of sensors used in Boston Scientific pacemakers today include the following:

• An accelerometer is a “motion sensor” that responds when your body is moving through space, such as standing up and walking.

• The minute ventilation sensor is a “physiologic sensor” that responds to increases in breathing rate and depth while you are active, such as carrying a load of groceries or walking up stairs.

• A blended sensor uses both types of sensors, an accelerometer and a minute ventilation sensor, and blends the information received from both sensors to provide an appropriate paced heart rate.

Your healthcare provider can explain the type of sensor in your pacemaker.

¹ Mianulli M, Birchfield D, Yakimow K, et al. Do elderly pacemaker patients need rate adaptation – implications of daily heart rate behavior in normal adults. PACE.1996;19(pt II):681(abstract).

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As owner of Dave�s Service Center, an automotive and truck repair center in Star Prairie, Wisconsin for the last 49 years, Dave Peterson has a strong appreciation for how technology has changed the auto industry.

Last year, he also gained appreciation for advances that have happened in medical technology. Dave and his wife Carrie had the opportunity to tour Boston Scientific�s Cardiac Rhythm Management manufacturing plant in Arden Hills, Minnesota, and see how implantable heart devices such as his pacemaker are made.

�It was really something,� said Dave of the plant. �The people are all really nice that work there. I had no idea how they (devices) were made, so everything surprised me. It was amazing to see how they put them together.�

Dave was especially impressed with all the careful steps he saw employees take to check that the devices remain impeccably sanitary during manufacturing in the clean room environment. He marveled at seeing how the devices work � �how just that little battery can keep them going.�

Second pacemaker “even better”
Dave, 65, received his first Guidant (now Boston Scientific) pacemaker after suffering a heart attack just a few days after Christmas in 2000. Doctors discovered that he had experienced a previous heart attack that he wasn’t aware of. They recommended a pacemaker to help regulate his heart rhythm.

In December of 2007, Dave received a replacement Boston Scientific pacemaker and experienced its technological advances firsthand. Boston Scientific was the first company to introduce the long-lasting pacemaker battery technology that is the industry standard today for pacemakers.

A passion for hunting and fishing
While Dave has had to make a few adjustments, thankfully, two of his other favorite activities — hunting and fishing — are ones he can still regularly enjoy. He hunts geese, duck, pheasant, and deer on 120 acres of land in northern Wisconsin that his son owns, and hopes to make return hunting trips to Iowa and North Dakota someday as well. Dave began deer hunting again about a year after getting his first pacemaker. He now uses a crossbow, after receiving his doctor’s approval and a special permit for using that type of bow from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He successfully bagged a deer this past year and is grateful his pacemaker allows him to continue enjoying the sport. “It’s a great thing,” he said.

Talk to your doctor about important safety information.