An implantable cardiac pacemaker - Essay Example

The straining of the heart causes further damage to the heart muscles and this may eventually lead to complete wearing out of the heart. It is imperative to note that this condition is serious medical problem that may be caused by diseases that cause damage to the heart such as coronary heart disease and high blood pressure. The cardiac pacemaker is a device that can be used to treat heart failure by assisting the heart to perform its function of pumping blood to the body (Forde & Pat, p. 1263).

The device is placed in the chest of the person who has the problem of heart failure and it delivers controlled and systematic electric stimulus to maintain normal heartbeat. Notably, the cardiac pacemaker monitors the hear beat of a person ensures that the heart rate is normal. This device plays a vital role of ensuring that the affected person does not succumb to heart failure by ensuring that the heart pumps blood at the desired rate. For instance, if the heart begins to slow down in its pumping process, the cardiac pacemaker sends an electric stimulus to the heart to initiate normal pumping.

Once the heart regains the desired pumping rate, the cardiac pacemaker takes a back seat and continues monitoring the heart rate for any anomalies. According to (Beck et al 812), approximately a third of the people with heart failures have problems with the transmission of electrical impulses to the ventricles of the heart. This means that the cardiac pacemaker can help to deliver the required electrical stimulus in order to synchronize the pumping of blood by both the ventricles of the heart in the appropriate manner.

Cardiac pacemaker devices are important especially for people who experience moderate and occasional severe heart failures. This device can help to avert the dangers associated with abnormal pumping of blood by the heart and thus save millions of lives. Also, people with persistent heart failures despite taking the requisite medications can use cardiac pacemakers. In such cases, the cardiac pacemaker can be implanted permanently on the chest of the affected person whereby it manages the heart failure condition by monitoring the heart rate and intervening whenever necessary (Bazaka & Mohan, p. 14). This device also has therapeutic functions for people who have weak heart muscles that cannot function normally.

The first ever electronic device to be implanted into a human body was the cardiac pacemaker. In 1958, the first cardiac pacemaker designed and produced by Dr. Rune Elmqvist was implanted on a patient who was suffering from severe Gerbezius-Adam’s-Stokes attacks (Beck et al 811, Haddad et al., p. 40). This pioneering device was powered by rechargeable batteries and it only had one silicon transistor. Notably, the first cardiac pacemaker worked only for a few hours before it had to be replaced by a second similar device.

Before the implanted cardiac device was designed, early scientists had produced an external pacemaker which worked successfully in the provision of temporary cardiac therapy. The external pacemaker was a cumbersome and heavy device which could not be easily carried around by the patients (Haddad et al., p. 42). Advances in biomedical engineering and the discovery of silicon transistors made it possible for scientists to produce a lighter and portable pacemaker. According to Bazaka and Mohan, these pacemakers were externally carried by the