Pacemakers: what day-to-day devices can interfere with their operation

Pacemakers are an essential method for detecting alterations in the heartbeat and about its state of health.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
22 May 2023 Monday 15:07
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Pacemakers: what day-to-day devices can interfere with their operation

Pacemakers are an essential method for detecting alterations in the heartbeat and about its state of health. Its function is to identify if this organ is working properly and, if not, is capable of creating the necessary stimulus to maintain an appropriate heart rate. Therefore, it is one of the great allies of cardiologists and patients, especially those of an older age. However, there are still frequent questions about people with pacemakers.

One of the most common has to do with the question of whether it can suffer interference. As it is an electronic device, many people think that certain day-to-day appliances, such as microwave ovens, could affect their operation when they come into contact. The reality is that many of them do not pose any problem, but others do, so you will have to know which ones and be careful.

Some believe that certain devices that may be used on a daily basis, or that are routinely accessed, adversely affect the function of pacemakers. Therefore, people who carry one of them would be exposed to a series of risks, as this device suffers problems in its operation. However, many of the objects found within this collective imagination do not have any inconvenience for pacemakers.

On the contrary, there is a list of objects that interfere with the activity of the pacemaker and that could cause it to not work correctly after making contact with them.

A very common question among people who have pacemakers is about whether mobile phones can affect their functioning. The answer is no, but you have to be careful. In other words, smartphones pose a very low risk of interference for a pacemaker, so there is nothing to worry about. However, it is very important to always keep them as far away as possible from the pacemaker and, therefore, from the chest area.

So that nothing to support them or bring them closer to this area, for example, could not be kept in a shirt pocket. It is simply a precaution, but both medical professionals and manufacturing companies, in the case of Apple, recommend a separation between the mobile and the device of about 15 centimeters.