The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 97

4 v. A small battery-operated device, the pacemaker keeps some 200,000 Americans from infants to the elderly either alive or leading a normal life. vn few, i 9 I fa 2. A'w 1 FT EKG Tells Whether a Patient's Pacemaker Is Working Properly 4. 1 ft i Dr.

Stephen Glasser, Cardiologist V4 fVt i 4 9 t. Kl'Ji i A it 1 'af-N These he explained are Atomic Energy Commission rules that the person must be registered and they must know where you are at each moment, "and if you die, they must be allowed to remove the radiation source from the body." With a pacemaker, the patient can resume his normal activities, Yeager stressed. "We expect every patient to go back to normal activities what he was doing before he got the pacemaker," he said. "It does not make him a 21-year-old The only restrictions are usually limited to the first few weeks after the procedure. But there are no permanent restrictions, he said.

Pacemaker patients can't operate microwave ovens, only because it alters the rate of the pacemaker. The pacemaker improves the quality of life for some patients. It means a resumption of normal activities without dizzy spells, fainting, shortness of breath or fatigue. For others, the small piece of equipment called a pacemaker means the difference between life and death. Pacemaker.

A battery-operated miracle of the 20th century. become unattached so easily. Disadvantage. Patient has to be put to sleep, and there is an incision in the chest. The third method is similar to the second, except the electrode is screwed into the heart muscle rather than sewn in.

The patient still has to be put to sleep and an incision made. But there are no sutures in the heart muscle. The type of pacemaker and the method of attaching it to the heart varys with the patient, and the doc-tor's preference, Yeager pointed out. Companies make pacemakers in various sizes and with different types of electrodes, "so it is possible to match the specific unit to the needs of the patient. Pacemaker patients are either seen on a regular basis or get a weekly "checkup" by telephone.

"By doing that we can tell before it (the pacemaker) fails that it is going to fail," Glasser added. Nuclear pacemakers, Glasser feels, are right in certain situations, "primarily for young adults because they last many years." Disadvantages are that they are expensive, and that there are "restrictions placed on a walking radiation Telephone "Checkups" Aid Pacemaker Patients The Shreveoort Timj July 11, 7-F.