PM reliability

Hi folks. As a 6-mth veteran of life with a PM, I've been surfing the site and learning a bit more on various topics. I was struck by the no of cases reported of PM malfunction. Seems way too hi, going by the rosy picture painted by makers/docs etc on the highly developed state of PM design these days. What scares me is that actual statistics reg the incidence of malfunction are not referred to by anyone. I presume that means no one knows except the makers, and they probably aren't telling.

Am I wrong, or is someone aware of the availability of such figs, and maybe the figs themselves? If the answer is No, wonder whether we should organise ourselves to find out the actual state of affairs.

Feedback, anyone?
Gopal Rao

3 Comments

What is your source of data...

by donr - 2013-06-10 04:06:18

...for PM malfunctions?

I'd like to read it before commenting.

Generally speaking I am a big supporter of PM reliability, If I am wrong, I'd like to know it.

Don

malfunction

by Tracey_E - 2013-06-10 09:06:11

In all the years I've been coming here (5?), I have never heard of a complete malfunction. Many had complications, that was their reason for searching out this site. There have been recalls, leads go bad, sometimes leads get out of place, things get infected, pockets need to be repositioned, on rare occasions the body rejects it. No one has ever posted to say it just stopped.

The overall incident of complications is about 4%, I believe I saw somewhere. Serious complications are only a very small portion of that. When I have a chance, I'll try to find the study for you. Malfunction was not listed and I've never seen a post about it. If something should go wrong, the pm has built in safety mechanisms so it continues to pace. I don't think there is a vast conspiracy to cover up a failure rate. It's a high tech state of the art computer with multiple back ups and thorough testing. I'd be more worried about a recall than a failure.

No stats but...

by jenny97 - 2013-06-10 09:06:50

keep in mind that many of the people that find this site are those who are looking for answers to issues that have arisen for them. Many who haven't had issues don't search for and find this site. therefore, this is a skewed representation of the number of problems that arise. According to the Internet (which, of course, is always completely accurate ;) ), there are about 3 million people in the world with pacemakers. From my calculations, there are only about 20,000 people on this site. So you can see it is a very small sampling. And again, it's skewed because the impetus for finding the site is often a problem or concern.

Also, one thing to keep in mind is that many of the postings on this site are not about PM malfunctions, per se, but about settings issues, which are easily corrected through a visit to the dr.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Have a great day!

Jenny

You know you're wired when...

“Batteries not included” takes on a new meaning.

Member Quotes

I am a 58 year old woman, race cars, ski at 13,000+ feet, work out daily, have become a second-degree black-belt in Karate, run a business - no limitations.