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iPods and Pacemakers Don't Mix
fermion writes "The Register reports a study that indicates that iPods and pacemakers do not get along. While there do not appear to be any long term effects, iPods disrupt the operation of the pacemaker. It is noted that such effects have not previously been observed as iPods do seem to be popular with the pacemaker-wearing population."
They did try to do the same study with the Zune, but were unable to find anyone to participate
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
"Look at that guy dancing to his iPod..."
"He's not dancing, he's having a coronary!"
"Either way, he's got good rhythm!"
I'm an engineer who works for a pacemaker company, and from what I've understood on this hype, the iPod is just disrupting communication with the cardiologist's programming station. "The equipment to misread the heart's pacing" is misunderstood as the pacemaker missing the heart's pace, but I believe it much more likely to be the programming station missing the real time EKG stream to the programming station. With the exception of that lone device, I bet the rest of the pacemakers paced and performed as properly as they could with a noisy communication channel. The communication protocols for the devices I've worked on are often wrapped with many parity checks and CRCs. And yes, modern pacemakers are even run through lengthy tests of randomly hitting them with a multitude of communication errors to make sure these situations are covered.
So in short, this is just a poorly written and misleading article that is going to feed off the public's misunderstanding of technology.
Despite the fact that you've been modded into oblivion, I'll respond because it's a fairly common belief that people with heart problems requiring a pacemaker are always restricted in terms of their cardiovascular activity. In fact, pacemakers are often prescribed to treat symptoms such as exercise intolerance, and the patients who have them can often exercise just as vigorously as anyone else (barring other physical problems). A quick googling turned up this American Heart Association paper which details many of the common misconceptions associated with pacemaker use.
neil diamond
Still searching for that artificial heart of gold, eh? I know the feeling.
msuave: Yes, a pacemaker or defibrillator is essentially inside a faraday cage already. They are generally titanium or steel encased, and designed to resist most radiation fields that are encountered in everyday life. However, faraday cages are not perfect, and the pacemaker has to have leads come out to thread into the heart. Just as you can use your cellphone inside a metal plane (also a faraday cage), some degree of radiation will be seen by the pacemaker electronics. In general, these devices are programmed by placing a wand over the device which essentially communicates by RF to the internal device -- if it was a perfect cage, it couldn't even be reprogrammed except by physically accessing the device (e.g. minor surgery.)
AC: Agreed regarding the sensationalism. Our practice tells EVERY pacemaker and defib recipient a list of things they should and shouldn't do. We counsel patients to hold their cellphone in their RIGHT hand and only crunch it between their right shoulder and ear, as almost all pacemakers are implanted on the left side. In general microwaves are ok, and patients are given a letter and card for the airport, where they can be wanded. Quite clearly, if somebody puts another RF emitting device RIGHT ON TOP of the implant, it could cause some interference. No, this is not unique to ipods. Again, if you actually talk to grandpa, I'm sure he knows this, especially if he was implanted by us. :) This "research" is quite ridiculous.
Finally, agreed regarding the description of the findings -- if it is just interrupting transmission of data to the programmer, this is a lot less dangerous than scrambling the internal signal seen by the pacemaker. The pacemakers are designed to recognize noise, again for the expected interference as noted above, and can handle this using many filters (e.g. something at 60 Hz is probably NOT coming from your body.)
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Vetran slashdotter, ID #101.
Wait, UIDs are not in binary?
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Patients aren't told as much as you would think. When my infant son got his, we were given a list that basically included anything wireless. It wasn't until we asked around a little before we got more reasonable information.
With that in mind, this article taught me something new. I had always assumed interference was related to the wireless nature of pacemakers. My son's is regularly re-programmed via a wireless device set anywhere near his chest. I had assumed if there was a problem it would be related to whatever memory was being programmed. The ipod article suggests the interference is just an interruption between the device and its leads. They suggest the interference won't cause lasting problems once the patient is separated from the interfering device. That's not something that was in the 50 page booklet that they provided with the pacemaker.