|
No. A pacemaker can only stimulate an irregularly beating heart, not a dead one. The pacemaker would almost certainly be triggered, since it would detect the absence of a regular heartbeat, but it would be to no avail. Your heartbeat is a bioelectrical process, instigated by a mass of specialized cells in the top of the right atrium called the sinoatrial (or SA) node. When this "natural" pacemaker sends an electrical charge through a heart chamber, the chamber contracts. A pacemaker is a small mechanical device implanted underneath
the skin that monitors this biolectrical process. If a heart is beating abnormally (say, slower than usual), it discharges a steady series of shocks to stabilize it. No doubt you're familiar with the dramatic scenes in medical dramas involving heart defibrillators and lots of shouts of "CLEAR!" These devices only work if the patient's heart is in fibrillation, which is a random twitching generated when a specific part of the heart starts to die. There's still electricity there, it's just uncoordinated.
|
