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Check that iPod when you're around the elderly

A 17-year-old high school student in Michigan has uncovered that iPods can cause pacemakers to malfunction. In a study that tested 83 elderly patients, an iPod was placed just two inches from the patient's chest for five to 10 seconds. Telemetry interference occurred in 29 percent of the patients, and a pacemaker misreading the heart's function occurred in 20 percent of patients, according to HealthDay News. In some cases, electrical interference was detected from as far as 18 inches away, and in one patient, the pacemaker stopped working.

Jay Thaker, son of an electrophysiologist and a rheumatologist, was put in touch with Dr. Krit Jongnarangsin, assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Michigan, to help investigate the effects of iPods on pacemakers.

"We took patients from a pacemaker clinic, got consent, and we put the pacemaker programmer on them to view what was going on inside the pacemaker on a screen," Thaker said to the Denver Channel. "And then we took the iPod and held it about two inches above the implant site of the pacemaker."

"If the pacemaker is inhibited by the iPod and the patient does not have their own rhythm, they can be in serious problem," added Jongnarangsin.

Dr. Jongnarangsin astutely points out, "Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users," but adds that the phenomenon needs to be studied more. Only iPods were used in the test, and it’s unclear if other portable music players may also pose such a risk to pacemakers.

Although iPods aren’t usually in the hands of those with pacemakers, such individuals could come in close contact with those who do carry around Apple’s music player. Apple announced in April that it has sold its 100 millionth iPod, making it a particularly popular device in the hands of the general public.

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Rising to Apples Defense
By Misty Dingos on 5/11/2007 9:55:08 AM , Rating: 2
Is it just me but if I buy a life saving device that costs between $5000 and $20,000 it best not freak out because one of the grandkids walks into the room with an IPOD.

The average pacemaker should be able to weather just about any electrical storm short of an EMP burst from a nuke. If it doesn't the FDA should not license the thing.




RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By tomthehand on 5/11/2007 10:19:18 AM , Rating: 4
Seriously! And what's the deal with chemotherapy? It makes people WAY sick! And did you know that if you have to have your legs amputated, it's super hard to walk? What kind of jerks approve medical treatments that have side effects?


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By Misty Dingos on 5/11/2007 11:55:53 AM , Rating: 4
OK so let me use this theoretical example. You have a funny feeling in your chest. You go to your doctor and he says. "Sorry dude bad news. You need a pacemaker." You get your pacemaker. The day after you feel well enough to take a walk you go to the mall to buy your significant other some flowers. A teenager walks by with an IPOD your pacemaker locks up and so do you.

The good news is that you are now dead and have no more earthly problems. Your heirs on the other hand are going to sue someone. The question is who? The FDA? They approved the medical device. The manufacturer? They designed, built, and tested it. Or Apple? Their gadget caused the thing that keeps you alive to stop so you died.

The medical device manufacturers have long known that pacemakers have an issue with electronic interference. To allow the interference from a device like an IPOD to shut them off is unconscionable.


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By tomthehand on 5/11/2007 12:23:43 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, theoretical example. Sure. So you have a funny feeling in your chest. You go to your doctor and he says "Sorry dude, bad news. Your heart is messed up. Luckily, we can save your life by inserting a pacemaker, but unfortunately, pacemakers are delicate electronic devices, and you have to keep other electronics away from you for the rest of your life." You say "Oh, that doesn't concern me, doc. If anything happens to me, I'll just look for someone to sue."

The day after you feel well enough to take a walk you go to the mall to buy your significant other some flowers. A teenager walks by with an iPod and absolutely nothing happens, because he's nowhere near close enough to interfere with your pacemaker. On your way back from buying flowers, you buy one of those newfangled iPods and keep it in your chest pocket. Your pacemaker locks up and so do you.

Who do you sue? The FDA, which approved the device which saved your life, which has to be used under very specific circumstances? The manufacturer, who designed, built, and tested it, and discovered that though it is expensive, risky, and has side effects, it is capable of extending the lives of patients who would die otherwise? Or Apple, the makers of an electronic gadget, which you know darn well you can't have anywhere near you?


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By Misty Dingos on 5/11/2007 2:06:47 PM , Rating: 1
Doctors have understood that you can use electrical pulses to regulate heartbeats since about 1890. And the implantable pacemaker has been around since 1958. So we have come to a time where millions of people have these life saving devices in them. Well that’s great. Now isn’t it time that we built one that lets someone have some semblance of a normal life?


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By tomthehand on 5/11/2007 2:23:49 PM , Rating: 5
I am not a doctor, and I don't know everything about pacemakers. However, as an engineer, I do know one thing for sure: if it were easy to make pacemakers that couldn't be affected by electrical fields, without decreasing their effectiveness and safety, and without making them so expensive nobody could ever afford one, that's how they would make them.

Do you watch the news at night and say "Engineers have been making cars since 1893. Isn't it time that we built one that can't hurt people when you crash it? They've been flying airplanes since 1903. Isn't it time we built one that isn't so darn loud? They've been making elevators since the 17th century. Isn't it time we built one that can take me to the moon?"

When something's not perfect, sometimes it's not because the person who made it is dumber than you. It's often because in the real world, some things are hard to do, there are tradeoffs, and perfection is impossible.


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By marvdmartian on 5/11/2007 2:30:31 PM , Rating: 2
Seriously! I mean, how come no one blames the dark emperor, Steve Jobs, or his evil empire, Apple?? It's obvious that they built this interference into the ipods, so that when some 16 year old kid shows off his new technology to grandpa, if the music don't kill him, the ipod will!! Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!! ;)


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By Misty Dingos on 5/11/2007 3:41:20 PM , Rating: 2
AH HA! The truth comes out. You are an engineer. You aren't a chem E are you? Probably not, they haven't got a clue about computers. I have been working with engineers for the last twenty-six years. And without a doubt they are the biggest bunch of nay Sayers that have ever been granted a college degree and license.

If we listened to the average engineer, people that have lost a leg would still be walking around on a peg.

quote:
I do know one thing for sure: if it were easy to make pacemakers that couldn't be affected by electrical fields, without decreasing their effectiveness and safety,


Look at the last word there. I know you didn't really think about it when you wrote it. Safety. If a life enabling device is easily affected by the odd electrical field it isn't as safe as it could be.

Hey the guy that invented the pacemaker was probably an engineer and the guys that will build the space elevator are , no doubt going to be engineers. But if you start thinking that something is too hard to do then eventually you aren't even going to get out of bed some day. It will be just too hard to do.


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By TomZ on 5/11/2007 4:03:18 PM , Rating: 1
Wow, what a great thread. (I'm not being sarcastic, by the way.)

The reasons that engineers are "nay sayers" as you put it is that they are asked to do all sorts of things that may or may not be realistic, and they are grounded on the other side by the simple reality of what is actually possible given the area they work in. Engineers can't change the nature of the physics of electricity or magnetism, for example, so some things like "design a pacemaker that is not affected by any kind of interference" is something that can be almost achieved, but not perfectly achieved. So if an engineer tells you it is not possible, that doesn't necessarily signal a lack of willingness.


RE: Rising to Apples Defense
By knowyourenemy on 5/12/2007 10:21:33 AM , Rating: 2
Remember not to mention the blatant generalization he made, of course.


By Shining Arcanine on 5/11/2007 4:46:42 PM , Rating: 2
Correction, they have been making elevators since at least the first century BC (not to be confused with the first century AD, which was 100 years later). They had them in the Roman Colosseum.


I hope this is not a suprise
By JAB on 5/11/2007 7:39:43 AM , Rating: 2
Who wants to bet they used an Ipod with a hard drive? Those older ones are many times more likely to cause interference more so if you managed to line up the pacemakers magnetic field detector with the Ipod's hard drive magnet. It would be ince if they gave that much info but that would water down the dramatic effect.

Pacemakers have a fail safe and shutoff when you place a magnet on it when they are misfiring.

I would hope anyone that had a pacemaker would take the instructions they receive when it is put in to heart. Namely dont put any electronic device close to it. Theses instructions are universal.




RE: I hope this is not a suprise
By Polynikes on 5/11/2007 9:22:49 AM , Rating: 2
Seriously. I'm sure the doctors tell their patients what to keep away from their chest, including magnets and electronics. But we'll use the iPod as a scapegoat because it's well-known.


RE: I hope this is not a suprise
By UsernameX on 5/11/2007 11:48:31 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
Seriously. I'm sure the doctors tell their patients what to keep away from their chest, including magnets and electronics. But we'll use the iPod as a scapegoat because it's well-known.


As well as it should be known. You can't possibly tell your patient absolutely everything to stay away from. It's almost impossible! Personally I think it's great that they are doing a study on this. iPODs are everywhere!! Patients should be well informed. Not every single person in this world knows magnets exist in ipods. (especially the elderly ((no offense intended)))


RE: I hope this is not a suprise
By retrospooty on 5/11/2007 9:44:12 AM , Rating: 2
That makes sense. Magnets in hard drives are not your ordinary fridge magnet. These babies are WAY stronger. I don't have any exact figures, but I have ripped apart many of them, and I would guess at least 5x as much magnetism per cubic centimeter than your average household magnet.


RE: I hope this is not a suprise
By SurJector on 5/11/2007 5:05:47 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
These babies are WAY stronger.

Indeed but
1) they create static fields that do not interfere with anything
2) the casing of the hard drive makes a Faraday cage that isolates the outside from the inside shield (have you noticed that the screws are not attracted by your hard drive ?)


RE: I hope this is not a suprise
By rtrski on 5/12/2007 10:24:23 PM , Rating: 2
1) Pacemakers have a switch inside them that does indeed respond to a STATIC MAGNETIC FIELD by putting the pacemaker into a pre-set rate. Most programmers for pacemakers do this on purpose so 'theraputic' adjustments aren't applied while they are uploading new programs or downloading diagnostic data. They don't want the pacemaker messing with the heart while it's being reprogrammed so it goes into a 'standby' mode.

2) um, a "Faraday cage" does nothing against static MAGNETIC fields. Magnetic fields can reach right through conductors. This principle is used quite often in waveguide-based ferrite switches and circulators, where the permanent magnets that generate the STATIC magnetic field are glued or otherwise locked into pockets outside the waveguide (a completely closed metal 'pipe' so to speak) to bias the ferrite material placed inside that same metal 'pipe' so that the RF behavior is nonreciprocal.

We also used to 'dent tune' waveguide after first using a magnet outside the waveguide to roll a ball bearing inside the waveguide to a location where we got better RF performance out of the system. Then we'd mark the spot, drop the ball bearing out, whack a dent into the waveguide in that spot from the outside (which created a 'bump' dimpling out on the inside) and go about our merry way. In the Navy they have to mark these dents with special labels so no enterprising maintenance guy goes out and finds a nice clean piece of replacement waveguide. :)

The more likely reason 'screws are not attracted to your hard drive' is because static magnetic fields decrease with distance from the magnet, and although these magnets are very strong they're buried inside the HDD.


RE: I hope this is not a suprise
By OrSin on 5/11/2007 9:50:36 AM , Rating: 2
This is so dumb. They tell you to keep eveything 18 from your cheast that has a battery. That include cells phones and even watches. This nothing new.


DAC output noise
By bobsmith1492 on 5/11/2007 7:49:33 AM , Rating: 2
I would place my money on DAC output noise. The decoder chip we're using for a project now has a recommended output filter that really isn't much of anything; if you wanted to go cheap, you wouldn't even need a filter since you can't hear the switching noise anyway. However, it would be radiated which could cause interference with other devices.




RE: DAC output noise
By f95toli on 5/11/2007 1:30:01 PM , Rating: 2
No, it is more likely to be just the magnetic field from a HD. Pacemakers are differ from "ordinary" electronics in that they are sensitive to low-frequency or even dc-fields (i.e. theoretiaclly even the field from a fridge magnet). Hence, it is not an EMC issue as such. I seriously doubt you would have the same problem with a flash-based player.

I work in a lab where we use large magnetic fields (dc) and there are warning signs just about everywhere, no one with a pacemaker is even allowed to enter that part of the building.