Why is an Implantable Defibrillator NOT Useful Soon After Myocardial Infarction?

Here is the transcript of the video: Implantable defibrillator is an important life saving device. It can automatically detect life threatening ventricular arrhythmias and treat them, either with a shock or, sometimes by overdrive pacing. Then, why is it mentioned that, implanting a defibrillator soon after an acute myocardial infarction, in those with left ventricular dysfunction and prone for ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death, is not useful? This a representative image, showing the implanted defibrillator, and two shock coils, one in the superior vena cava and another in the right ventricle. These are high voltage, defibrillator shock coils. And, after the shock, if there is bradycardia, it can be covered by these two pacing electrodes, one at the tip, and one proximal to it. You can see the screw here, which means that it is a screw in type of electrode. This is the basic single chamber defibrillator. There are dual chamber defibrillators, where an additional lead can be placed in the right atrium, which can detect, atrial activity and guide the defibrillator to discrimate between supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias. You may be knowing that one of the causes for inappropriate ICD shocks, is supraventricular arrhythmia, wrongly detected by the defibrillator as a ventricular arrhythmia and giving a shock. It can be about 25% of the shocks and that can cause a lot of psychological distress to the person. So in that case, you can use a dual chamber defi...
Source: Cardiophile MD - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs