Pacemaker News and Research

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Digital health: the future for medicine?

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it," these were the words of Alan Kay quoted by Dr Euan Ashley at the Recent Developments in Digital Health 2016 event at the Royal Society of Medicine. No one exemplified this inspirational message further than Professor Tony Young, National Clinical Director for Innovation, NHS England.

26 Feb 2016

New study pinpoints two tiny clusters of neurons responsible for changing normal breaths into sighs

"You must remember this: a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh." Contrary to the words immortalized by the piano singer in "Casablanca," a sigh is far more than a sigh. Heaving an unconscious sigh is a life-sustaining reflex that helps preserve lung function.

9 Feb 2016

MRI safe for patients with implantable cardiac devices

The findings of a major study led by cardiovascular imaging specialists at Allegheny General Hospital, part of the Allegheny Health Network, suggest that magnetic resonance imaging is a safe and effective diagnostic procedure for patients with implantable cardiac devices.

30 Jan 2016

Pacemaker Induced Transient Asynchrony could help slow down progression of heart failure

Johns Hopkins has demonstrated in animals that applying a pacemaker's mild electrical shocks to push the heart in and out of normal synchronized contraction for part of each day may be an effective way to slow down the progression of heart failure, a disorder that afflicts millions of Americans.

24 Dec 2015

Eating at the wrong time of day affects learning and memory

An occasional late-night raid on turkey leftovers might be harmless but new research with mice suggests that making a habit of it could alter brain physiology.

24 Dec 2015

Advances in leadless pacing: an interview with Dr. Reddy

Pacemakers have been around for a very long time, they're great devices, critical for many people who have slow heartbeats. While they're very effective, they have some issues. There are two main aspects relating to these issues.

1 Dec 2015

NSU collaborates with Karolinska Institutet to conduct cell-based biomedical research

Nova Southeastern University is now at the forefront of conducting pioneering cell-based biomedical research with the launch of the new NSU Cell Therapy Institute, an international collaboration with prominent medical research scientists from Sweden's world-renowned Karolinska Institutet (KI).

17 Nov 2015

Penn Medicine's Gordon Baltuch performs 1,000th deep brain stimulation procedure

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) improves many of the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) and is a life-alerting surgery for many patients. Penn Medicine's Gordon Baltuch, MD, a professor of Neurosurgery and director of the Penn Center for Functional and Restorative Neurosurgery, is one of the most prolific DBS surgeons in the world, having recently performed his 1,000th procedure, marking an important milestone for Baltuch and Penn Medicine.

31 Oct 2015

New heart-powered pacemakers may be on the horizon

The implantable pacemaker, a medical marvel that has extended millions of lives since its invention nearly 60 years ago, is getting a 21st century makeover.

29 Oct 2015

Pacemakers can detect AF and enable initiation of anticoagulation for stroke prevention

Pacemakers can detect asymptomatic AF but are not routinely monitored for this purpose. The current study investigated whether pacemaker checks could be used to identify patients with asymptomatic AF who could then be given anticoagulation for stroke prevention.

19 Oct 2015

Doctors use MR-guided focused ultrasound to treat essential tremor

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is one of six locations nationally - and the only one in the Midwest - studying the safety and effectiveness of a promising new technology using MR-guided focused ultrasound to treat patients suffering from essential tremor as part of a multi-center FDA trial.

18 Oct 2015

Clinical trial initiated to determine feasibility, safety of focused ultrasound to treat depression

The first patient with depression has been treated with focused ultrasound. This procedure marks the beginning of a pilot clinical trial to determine the feasibility and safety of MR-guided focused ultrasound to non-invasively destroy a small volume of tissue deep in the brain - the anterior limb of the internal capsule - a well-established target for treating severe depression.

29 Sep 2015

Innovative technologies offer hope to people living with chronic pain

More than 100 million people in this country have pain that won't go away. Many of these chronic pain sufferers fail to get relief from pills, shots and even surgery, while others temporarily trade the pain for side effects such as drowsiness or digestive problems.

11 Sep 2015

LEADLESS II study confirms positive benefits of St. Jude Medical’s Nanostim leadless pacemaker

St. Jude Medical, Inc., a global medical device company, today announced primary results from the LEADLESS II study that confirm the positive benefits of the Nanostim™ leadless pacemaker for patients in need of a single-chamber ventricular pacemaker.

3 Sep 2015

European cardiomyopathies registry shows higher than expected use of defibrillators, genetic testing

The most representative snapshot of real world practice in cardiomyopathies in Europe has shown a higher than expected use of defibrillators and genetic testing. The baseline results of the ESC's EORP Cardiomyopathy Registry Pilot are presented for the first time today at ESC Congress 2015.

2 Sep 2015

Defibrillator does not improve outcomes in patients with CRT pacemaker

Most patients with a cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) pacemaker would not benefit from the addition of a defibrillator, according to results from the CeRtiTuDe cohort study presented for the first time today at ESC Congress1 and published in European Heart Journal.

1 Sep 2015

Benznidazole has significant antiparasitic activity, but does not reduce progression of Chagas cardiomyopathy

A 40 to 80 day treatment with the antiparasitic medication benznidazole significantly reduced parasite activity in the blood, but not progression, of serious heart problems over a 5-year period among patients with established Chagas disease (CD) cardiomyopathy, results of the BENEFIT trial show.