Empowered Patient Podcast Advancements in Design and Technology of Pacemakers with Dr. Leonard Ganz Abbott
Dr. Leonard Ganz is the Chief Medical Officer and Divisional Vice President of Medical Affairs for Abbott's Cardiac Rhythm Management Division. Traditional pacemakers include a pulse generator that is connected to the inside of the heart with insulated wires. These leads relay the electrical activity that goes between the pacemaker and the heart muscle. The Abbott Aveir VR is a single-chambered leadless pacemaker with improved battery longevity that is implanted inside the heart and eliminates the risks from leads.
Len explains, "There are different types of slow heart rhythms that people develop. Most commonly, people develop slow heart rhythms as they get older, but there are situations in which younger people develop slow heart rhythms as well. And at the most fundamental level, a pacemaker has to sense the intrinsic heartbeat, or heart rhythm, and then stimulate or pace the heart if the intrinsic heart rhythm isn't adequate or isn't as fast as the physician would like it to be."
"Over the five or six decades that we've had implantable pacemakers, there've been many, many advancements. Pacemakers are fully programmable in terms of heart rates and other features. We've gone from pacemakers that sense and pace in a single heart chamber to pacemakers that sense in two heart chambers and then even three heart chambers. So there have been tremendous advances over these years. One of the most important advances in recent years has been the development of what we call a leadless pacemaker."
#AbbottCardio #Pacemaker #ImplantablePacemakers #LeadlessPacemakers #HeartMuscle