iPods could pose a threat for cardiac pacemaker patients - Study

Music lovers, who cannot imagine how life would have been without iPod, should get alerted as the extremely popular digital music players from Apple can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, a new study conducted by a 17-year-old high school student revealed Thursday.

Jay Thaker, lead author of the study and a student at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan and Dr. Krit Jongnarangsin, a University of Michigan cardiologist who served as a senior author of the study, presented their work during the Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting in Denver Thursday attended by heart specialists from across the country.

In a study of 83 cardiac pacemaker patients, the revolutionary iPod, which Apple claims attracts people from 8-80 age group, has been found to cause malfunctions in electromagnetic equipment used by doctors to monitor the heart, interfering with the pacemakers nearly 30 percent of the time.

The portable music players caused pacemakers to malfunction in 50 percent of patients, according to the first-of-its-kind study held at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University.

When held 2 inches from the chests of the patients, whose mean age was 77, for five to 10 seconds, iPods interfered with telemetry equipment and caused implanted pacemakers to misread the heart's pacing, the study showed.

In most cases, the iPod interference caused pacemakers to misread the heart's pacing, while in one, the pacemaker stopped altogether. Researchers found that "telemetry interference" occurred in 29 percent of the patients, and "over sensing" (a pacemaker misreading the heart's function) occurred in 20 percent of patients, while in one patient, the pacemaker stopped working.

In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest, the study found.

"People commonly strap their iPod to the arm right next to their pacemaker or put it in a shirt pocket. There are quite a few situations where they come in proximity to the pacemaker -- closer than we would like them to," said Thaker.

The main concern is that pacemakers store the history of a heart's rhythms, and doctors could make treatment decisions based on faulty information on how a patient's heart is performing, he said. "If a physician was to go back and look at that (history), the physician might think that the patient was having abnormal heart rhythms," Thaker added.

iPod interference can also lead physicians to misdiagnose actual heart function and heart patients might be treated for conditions that aren't really present, Thaker said. "In addition, if an iPod stopped a pacemaker from working in a patient who was totally dependent on their pacemaker, it could cause the heart to stop," he said.

Doctors usually recommend their patients not to put any electric device over their pacemaker because many electric devices, such as cell phones, appliances, microwave ovens and high tension wires, and now iPod can be harmful to them.

Although, the most pacemaker patients are not iPod users, still they need to be aware of the risk because the music players are so common now-a-days.

As the pacemaker patients, who were included in the study, were not typical iPod users, so Jongnarangsin said it is unclear how often iPods cause misdiagnosis. "This needs to be studied more," he added.

iPod was launched five and half years ago in the year 2001, since then, there has not been a looking back for Apple Inc., and it has continued to introduce ten different iPod models to date. This includes five series of iPod, two series of iPod nano, two series of iPod mini and two generations of iPod shuffle.

The first iPod had a storage capacity of 5GB initially, which over the years, has developed and grown to proffer a tremendous capacity of 80GB. The enhancement and addition of more features in the iPod was a proof of its continuous market demand. iPod was proved to be a ground-breaking product in the music industry, music lovers all over the world cannot imagine how life would have been without iPod and its products.

The Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc. in April reported that it has sold 100 million iPods since their launch.