Description
Discover how leadless pacemakers are transforming care for patients with slow heart rates at UAMS Health. In this video, our cardiac electrophysiology team explains how these innovative devices offer important benefits over traditional pacemakers—no wires, smaller incisions, lower infection risk, fewer activity restrictions, and easier recovery. Learn the common symptoms of a slow heartbeat, from fatigue and decreased activity tolerance to more serious signs like dizziness or fainting that may require urgent care. You’ll also hear how UAMS Health supports patients long after implantation through our remote pacemaker and defibrillator monitoring clinic, allowing patients to travel and live life confidently while staying connected to their care team from anywhere in the world
Video Player
Transcript
Over the last couple of years, we have techniques and devices known as leadless pacemakers. And these really give us a whole host of options in order to take care of patients with slow heartbeats who may need a pacemaker.
So the benefits of these leadless pacemakers are the fact that there is no wire sitting anywhere in the body. They’re easier to remove. There is less of an infection risk. And most importantly, they don’t really have to deal with an incision on their chest. They don’t have to worry about that healing properly. They don’t have as many activity restrictions as they would otherwise have with a traditional pacemaker. So, there are many benefits of leadless pacemakers. The technology has been there for a while—it’s still improving, and it’s going to continue to improve.
How people come across the fact that they have a slow heart rate—well, it can be in quite a few ways. Sometimes, people are feeling tired, fatigued—they’re not able to do what they’re used to doing. They just feel like they’ve slowed down for some reason. And when they go to their primary care physician or their heart doctor, they’re found to have a low heart rate.
Other times, the symptoms can be a little bit more abrupt. They can be a little bit more severe. These can include lightheadedness, dizziness, passing out—in which case they need to be seen by a heart rhythm specialist and get a pacemaker more urgently, and this is usually done in the hospital itself.
One thing about our pacemaker clinic and our team here at UAMS is our remote monitoring system. We don’t want to feel like people are tethered to us geographically. We are happy to help them in times of assistance, but if they’ve had a pacemaker implanted here or a defibrillator implanted here, we want them to be able to go and enjoy their life—travel with family, travel to family, travel for their own experiences.
And what we do offer is a remote pacemaker or defibrillator clinic in the sense that regardless of where you are in the world, as long as you send us a transmission, we will be able to review the details and get in touch with you through MyChart or some other form to communicate with you if we saw anything concerning, and so that you were safely taken care of.
