Influence of Computing on Pacemakers

A pacemaker is a type of implant that regulates heartbeats by generating electrical shock on the heart. Pacemakers work by using "a simple core concept: the use of an outside source of electricity to stimulate human tissue in various ways to produce a beneficial therapeutic effect," (Aquilina). Pacemakers are normally used to treat for heart block, which is defined as an abnormal heart rhythm where the heart beats too slowly.

I chose to research how computing has influenced the pacemaker because I have a pacemaker myself. Funnily enough, I don't even notice that I have it. In fact, my entire life my mom has been the one to remind me about my pacemaker and the one who has on countless occasions mentioned how amazing it would be if it was smaller, less invasive, or even wireless. My mom’s dream was for me to reinvent the pacemaker to be less intrusive so I think my research and this assignment is in her honor.

Biomimicry is when engineering and design principles are produced with the intent to mimic nature, as if they were inspired by it. One inspiration for pacemakers was a sea species who has two "kidney-shaped electric organs on either side of their head," (Aquilina). According to Aquilina, Ancient Roman physicians used these types of sea animals to treat pain and gout in their patients.

In 1791, Italian physician Luigi Galvani "announced that electricity was inherent in body tissue," (Aquilina). Prior to this electricity had been proven to affect our bodies in various ways but we had not been able to say how so definitively. After Galvani’s discovery, people generally agreed that electricity would affect the heart and the pulse. The pulse is the expression of cardiac activity. Thus, since the pacemaker changes the pulse, it controls overall cardiac activity.

In the time between Galvani’s discovery and the invention of the original pacemaker similar to what we know today, scientists throughout the 1800s were experimenting with electric currents on people and animals, dead and alive, and noticing that electricity could revive organs.

In 1882 was the first time that a physician was able to change their patient’s heart rate at will. This reminds me of the tests that I get when I go in for a check up for my own pacemaker when the doctor intentionally slows down, then speeds up my heart rate. It is crazy to think they were doing something similar all the way back in 1882.

Though 1957 produced the first battery-operated wearable pacemaker, pacemakers were said to rise in popularity at the same time as the Americans landed on the moon. In 1969, pacemakers got lithium batteries. At this time pacemakers were only capable of generating shock for one chamber of the heart, though there were two. The pitfall of pacemakers at this time was that they could only increase heart rate at a fixed rate. Eventually, they improved enough to quicken heart rate proportionally to activity. This development was called the "rate responsive pacemaker."

The pacemaker, like any other technology, is getting smaller as the years go by, and is becoming more and more accessible. It is improving everyday and becoming closer and closer to what my mom envisions it to be, thanks to the power of computing.