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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A device that shocks the heart back into a normal rhythm appears to work without significantly altering a persons quality of life.
According to a new study out of Duke University Medical Center, after about a year of living with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), patients with the devices showed no differences on quality of life measures as similar patients without the devices.
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The research involved more than 2,500 patients taking part in the Sudden Cardiac Death in Heart Failure Trial. In addition to medical therapy, about a third of the group also had an ICD. The patients were followed for about 30 months. The results showed those who had received a shock from their ICD within a month of a follow up visit reported a significant decline in their assessment of physical and emotional health. Similar but less intense results were seen for those who received a shock within two months of a visit.
But after a year, no significant differences were seen between the 100 patients who had received a shock and the 638 patients who were not shocked.
We began examining these patients when ICDs were still relatively new, and until now, we were not entirely sure that in using a device to prolong life we werent causing additional problems in the process, study author Dr. Daniel Mark was quoted as saying. We are now happy to report that we found no evidence of that in this large trial. ICD users, on the whole, appear satisfied with the benefits and the consequences of defibrillator therapy.
SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, published online September 3, 2008
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