Battery-powered pacemakers have to be removed every 5 to 7 years when their batteries run out, but new technology presented at a meeting in the US suggests this may one day no longer be necessary: Engineers have developed a pacemaker that is powered by the heartbeat of the heart it is treating.
Pacemakers are implanted medical devices that use electrical impulses to control the heart muscle to regulate the beating of the heart.
Amin Karami, a research fellow in the U-M Department of Aerospace Engineering, says in a press statement released on a study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2012, that many patients fitted with pacemakers are children, who are destined to live with the implanted devices for many years:
"You can imagine how many operations they are spared if this new technology is implemented," says Karami.
At the meeting in Los Angeles, Karami reported a study where he and his colleagues tested an "energy-harvesting" device that uses piezoelectricity, which converts energy of motion into electricity.