Smartphones Harmful for People with Pacemakers

People wearing cardiac devices like Pacemaker should keep a safe distance from smartphones to avoid rare but unwanted pauses or painful shocks in functionality, a new study has revealed.

“Pacemakers can mistakenly detect electromagnetic interference (EMI) from smartphones as a cardiac signal, causing them to briefly stop working,” said Dr Carsten Lennerz, first author and cardiology resident in the Clinic for Heart and Circulatory Diseases, from the German Heart Centre.

“This leads to a pause in the cardiac rhythm of the pacing dependent patient and may result in syncope. For implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) the external signal mimics a life threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmia, leading the ICD to deliver a painful shock,” said Lennerz.

While this does not mean people with implanted cardiac devices should throw away their devices, experts feel it would be better to take a few precautions to prevent signalling ‘interference’.

"Nearly everyone uses smartphones and there is the possibility of interference with a cardiac device if you come too close," study senior author Christof Kolb, prior head of electrophysiology at the German Heart Centre,

"Patients with a cardiac device can use a smartphone," Kolb said. "But they should not place it directly over the cardiac device. That means not storing it in a pocket above the cardiac device. They should also hold their smartphone to the ear opposite to the side of the device implant."

The US Food and Drug Administration currently recommends that users at least keep their mobile device 5 to 7 inches away from the implanted cardiac devices. However these guidelines are based on a research that is ten years old and mobile technology has come a long way since then.

 For the study, researchers placed smartphones directly on the skin above the implanted cardiac device of 308 patients. The phones were then put through the regular protocol of calling, ringing, talking and disconnecting.

Among the 308 patients, the researchers noticed that 0.3 percent were affected by the EMI disturbances caused by the mobile devices.

“Interference between smartphones and cardiac devices is uncommon but can occur so the current recommendations on keeping a safe distance should be upheld.

Lennerz concluded, “Interestingly, the device influenced by EMI in our study was MRI compatible which shows that these devices are also susceptible.”