Remote care device implanted on heart failure patient

Dr Venkat D Nagarajan and Dr K Sridhar with the patient Sanjeeva Reddy at press conference held at Sunshine hospital.

A rare surgery was performed by a team of doctors of Sunshine Hospitals where 54-year-old Sangeeva Reddy from Addanki, Ongole, underwent implantation of ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator).

This operation was done successfully by Dr Venkat D Nagarajan, senior cardiologist, electro physiologist and cardiac device specialist at Sunshine Heart Institute on September 22.

Speaking on this occasion, Dr Nagarajan said with this, Sunshine Heart Institute also joined the club of very few cardiac centers in the world to perform the ICD home monitoring system on a heart failure patient.

According to doctors, this cardiac device can be remotely monitored by using unique Wi-Fi.

Sanjeeva Reddy was patient of coronary artery disease. He was previously diagnosed with Ischemic Dilated Cardiomyopathy, a condition in which heart pumping function is severely damaged due to rhythm disturbance (ventricular tachycardia). By implanting a cardiac device called cardioverter defibrillator which is similar to the pacemaker, the heart beat of the patient Sanjeeva Reddy would be monitored automatically, no matter wherever he is.

“Till now, patients implanted with cardiac devices had to visit the doctor number of times for the assessment of functioning of the device implanted in them. But with the present sophisticated implantable device called ICD, things became very easy. ICD, transmitter that is attached to patient all the time, can automatically download all data from the device and send it to the physicians’ clinic via SMS, email or fax! Merlin.net Patient Care Network (PCN) made it possible. If any serious complications was found, with the help of new transmitter, the patient can be taken to a nearby hospital without things going out of hands” said Dr Venkat and D Nagarajan.

“Better management of patients’ health would also be plausible through this new state of the art technology. This remote care device allows a greater safety net for patients to find out potential problems in-time without the patients succumbing themselves to death”, he added.

Sanjeeva Reddy, the patient exclaimed, “I am an RTC conductor. I suffered from severe cardiac rhythm disturbances. My heart pumping was weak. According to doctors, 80 per cent of my heart was damaged. It was having severe blocks and arteries were also very thin. As I suffered severe heart attacks previously, my heart pumping was damaged acutely.

Now after implanting ICD home monitoring device, I am well. Doctors said that after one month, they would put stents in the heart.”