PM Interrogation - what does it tell the clinician?

I've always been curious as to what my doctor learns about my heart during an interrogation. I know he checks the leads and their conduction to and from the heart. I know he checks the battery life as well. However, does the interrogation give him/her any indication of your overall cardiac health?

From my understanding the heart has an electrical system and a muscular system. The electrical system is what is corrected by a PM. When your nodes no longer function and send the signals they need to send so your heart beats at a rhyhm that can sustain life, the PM kicks in.

Does the interrogation give the clinician any indication of how the rest of your heart is functioning...strength of muscles? potential blockages? etc or  just the electrical system? Can you have, as just an example, a clean bill of health after an interrogation and still be walking around with the need for a quadruple bypass or some other issue?

Thank you. I always learn so much from you all.

3 Comments

Pacemaker

by Dave H - 2019-05-02 15:23:31

I just had a PM interrogation followed by a visit with my device clinic nurse. I has previously sent her a note that my - at the time -  heart failure specialist would like a copy of the interrogation. Her answer: "I don't know what he'd be looking for, it's just a list of numbers."  My visit with her was just a check that the Medtronic PM/ICD I have is operating properly - She declared it fully functional.

--Dave--

heart health

by Tracey_E - 2019-05-02 16:44:16

An echo will tell them about the condition of the valves and muscles and ejection fraction (how they measure function). A stress test will tell overall condition and blood work will give an idea if your arteries are likely to be clogging up. So yeah, if you are about to have a heart attack the pacer isn't going to tell you that as much as other tools. However, the pacer interrogation gives some hints as to overall heart health. It tells them how much time your heart rate spends in each zone, so they can tell if you work out regularly and how high your rate gets. It can tell them if we have afib or vt which won't predict a heart attack but it can predict cardiac arrest and stroke. It tells them how often you pace vs beat on your own, which for someone like me is useless because I pace every beat but for some people it could be useful to know. All of the tools together build a picture, but none of them are a crystal ball. 

That's what I thougjht...

by verne8 - 2019-05-02 16:50:26

Thanks folks. Your comments were exactly as I suspected. Last time I was there the doctor said my Atrial was 20% and ventrical was 100%. I take that to mean that my ventricular is paced 100% of the time and my atrium only 20%. I had no events. I guess he considered that good and sent me on my merry way for another 6 months.

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