The Pacemaker

For this Virtual Science fair, my partner and I (Anthony) decided to take on the

subject of the Pacemaker.It is a very interesting subject with lots of Canadian history

involved. This report will talk to you about the different aspects of the pacemaker; form

the inventor, to its recent innovations. Hope you enjoy our project.

WHAT IS A PACEMAKER?

The Pacemaker is a battery-powered implantable devices that function to

electrically stimulate the heart to contract and thus to pump blood through out the body.

These devices are used to help patients with very slow heart beats. A regular pacemaker

weighs about an ounce, band has and area of 30cm2.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF PACEMAKER.

There are many different sorts of pacemaker. I will tell you about some of them.

A single-chamber pacemaker has one lead while a dual-chamber has two leads. Dual

chamber pacemakers have two leads: one in the atrium and one in the ventricle. Dual-

chamber pacemakers are more complex and sophisticated than single-chamber

pacemakers. A dual chamber pacemaker can receive signal from both the ventricle and

the atrium. It can also coordinate the signals and contractions of the atria and the

ventricles to help the heart beat more efficiently. There is an external pacemaker for

people with small abnormalities in their heart rhythm. The body normally has a

pacemaker when you are born but some peoples stop working so that is where the man

made pacemaker comes in.

catheterization laboratory. Implantation of a pacemaker is considered a minor procedure.

Some hospitals with electrophysiology laboratories implant pacemakers there. A

pacemaker is implanted just below the collarbone in a procedure that takes about two

hours. Each pacemaker can last up to around ten years without a change.

THE INVENTION OF THE PACEMAKER

The Pacemaker was created by doctor John A Hopps. Dr. Hopps was a medical

engineer at the time and was called the father of that type of medicine. No one in the past

had ever used this field of medicine for the heart. It is said that he invented the first

pacemaker in 1949. Dr. W.G. Bigelow and Dr. J.C. Callaghan where the two other

Canadians who helped Dr. Hopps create the first Pacemaker. This invention was created

at the Bunting Medical Centre in Toronto. Dr. Hopps Pacemaker was put on the list of

top 5 medical innovations in 1999. He also created the first electrical device to be

implanted in a Human. Nowadays, the pacemaker is very widely used to remedy a low

heart beat count. John Hopps was named one of the greatest Canadians to ever live.

The 1958 surgery, performed in Stockholm by Dr. Ake Senning, changed

the life of recipient Arne Larsson, a 43-year-old suffering from a severe heart condition.

He lived an active life for another 43 years and received a total of 26 pacemakers during

that time. This means that since evolution is always changing and new heart problems

arrive which makes it hard for adaptation and that is why new pace makers come out.

Most of the new ones are just improvements like the old ones. For example if they ran out

of battery power quickly. Or this one time when the man was not informed that his

battery was out and after time it leaked which created lots of problems for him and he
eventually died. Permanent Pacemaker: A permanent pacemaker has two parts; the

pacemaker chamber and the lead(s). The pacemaker chamber contains a timing device for

setting the pacing rate, a circuitry system that detects electrical signals from the heart, and

a battery, this was a good pacemaker but it was very complicated which is why you see

rarely of those kinds and now we have single chambered pacemakers, also the old types

had metal which could be alerted if a magnet was near. (Medicine Net, 1996). Now rate

responsive pacemakers are built to adjust to the person's heart rate and physical fitness

for people who are fairly young and have a very active life.

RECENT INNOATIONS

The first ever pacemaker was external, because the technology was not advanced

enough to allow a person to have an internal pacemaker. This made it very painful to

move since there were wires sticking into your body, and sometimes the pain was so

great that patients would rather have no pacemaker and live less but pain free.

(Medtronic, 2001). The problem was that the patient who had this could go as long as

their extension cord would let them, and even then the pain would be too great for the

person to keep on moving (Medtronic, 2001).

RELATED INNOVATIONS

The heart is divided into right and left sides. Each side has a chamber that

receives blood that is returned to the heart (called the left and right atria) and a muscular

chamber that is responsible for pumping blood out of the heart (called the left and right

ventricles). The heart's normal "spark plug" is an area of specialized heart tissue called

the SA node, which is located in the right atrium. Each time this tissue "fires," an

electrical impulse is generated that travels first through the right and left atria, signaling
these chambers to contract and pump blood into the ventricles. The impulse then travels

down into another small patch of specialized heart tissue called the AV node, which is

located between the atria and the ventricles. All this is what the real heart pacemaker is

and also this is what a pacemaker tries to recreate. (Pacemaker 2007). The electrical

impulse is conducted through the AV node and then through specialized wire-like

pathways into the ventricles, where it signals the ventricles to contract and to pump blood

out into the lungs and throughout the body. This normal sequence of electrical activation

of the chambers of the heart is called sinus rhythm. It occurs each time the heart beats,

usually about 60 to 80 times every minute.

HOW THE HEART WORKS

A pacemaker comes in if this rate drops dramatically, mostly for old people from

45 and up. The right atrium receives venous blood (blood with no oxygen in, usually is

blood coming) from the body and pumps it into the right ventricle. The right ventricle

pumps the oxygen-poor blood to the lungs to receive oxygen. (Medicine Net, 1996). The

oxygen-rich blood from the lungs then travels to the left atrium and is pumped by the left

atrium into the left ventricle. The left ventricle delivers the oxygen-rich blood to the rest

of the body. In addition to oxygen, the blood transports other nutrients (glucose,

electrolytes, etc.) to the organs.

In order to keep a body healthy, the heart must maintain an adequate heartbeat

(heart rate) so that sufficient amount of oxygen and nutrients are delivered by the left

ventricle to the body. (Medicine Net, 1996). The oxygen-rich blood from the lungs then

travels to the left atrium and is pumped by the left atrium into the left ventricle. The left

ventricle delivers the oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. In addition to oxygen, the
blood transports other nutrients (glucose, electrolytes, etc.) to the organs. In order to keep

a body healthy, the heart must maintain an adequate heartbeat (heart rate) so that

sufficient amount of oxygen and nutrients are delivered by the left ventricle to the body.

(Medicine Net, 1996). Each individual heartbeat is actually a collection of several muscle

movements spurred into action by electrical impulses. (Pacemakers, 2002). The heart has

its own pacemaker; it is composed of electrically active cells which is located in the

upper right heart chamber. (Pacemakers, 2002). It sends a steady stream of electrical

impulses to the heart which keeps it going all the time. (Pacemakers, 2002).

MISCELLANEOUS

Hopps himself received a pacemaker in 1984. It lasted for 13 years before he

informed his doctors that the signal was getting weak and it required a new battery.

Hopps died in 1998. (CBC archive, 2006). Abnormally slow heart rates (bradycardias)

can result from diseases affecting the SA node, the conduction tissues, and the AV node.

Sick sinus syndrome is a disease wherein the SA node cannot generate signals frequently

enough to maintain adequate heart rate. (Medicine Net, 2007). Dr. William Bigelow and

Dr. John Callaghan invented it (the pacemaker, 2003). When they were studying for open

heart surgery the problem was that they could not make a heart restart beating so many

patients died (the pacemaker, 2003)

To conclude we both thought that the pacemaker was an excellent innovation. It

has saved over thousands of people world wide, and continues to evolve to benefit our

life style. The pacemaker we think is a great idea because nothing could ever do what it

did and it will never get replaced, just upgraded. It is just like air we all need it but
without it our society would be at a down fall, many people would not live past 40. So

even if you think something so small is useless think again.

References:

1) American Heart Association [AHA] (2007). Pacemakers. Retreived on March 1,

2007 from http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4676

2) CBC archive(2006) First pacemaker implanted in human. Retrive on March 1,

2007 from http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-75-942-5469-

10/on_this_day/science_technology/pacemaker_implanted.

3) Pacemaker (2007) Retrieved on March 1, 2007 from

http://www.cardiologychannel.com/pacemaker/

4) Pacemaker (2007) Retrieved on March 1, 2007 from

http://www.cardiologychannel.com/pacemaker/