Pacemakers Powered By Heartbeat

The battery in a pacemaker may no longer be required as technology catches up with it. M. Amin Karami, assistant professor at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is involved with the designing of a pacemaker which will be powered by the very heart that they are regulating.

The most obvious benefit of such a pacemaker will be the elimination of battery replacements for the gadget that are currently made every 5 to 12 years based on the model. Also the new pacemaker is not like the old ones which required leads to be attached to the heart and deliver electrical signals that regulate the heart’s activity.

The new pacemaker has not got any leads. Its a wireless gadget that resides within the heart itself. The heart moves a significant amount on its own and now the researchers have figured out a way to harvest this movement and convert it into power that can run the pacemaker.

The successful testing of the new prototype, which is under construction, will lead to a great shift in pacemakers and heart health care. This science experiment based on the new pacemaker is likely to be tested on animals within the next couple of years.