false shock? how do they really know?

My Medtronic device delivered a shock recently. Ambulance came, went to ER, following up with dr, but so far no one has told me why it delivered the shock. How do they determine whether it was a false shock or not? I am very anxious about this.

3 Comments

shock

by denise - 2014-02-27 08:02:24

An interrogation in the ER showed the exact time of the shock. Are you telling me that the device will also record the presence of an event that caused the shock?

If in inappropriate shock occurred when someone were driving, that certainly could be worse than not receiving a shock. That's one of my concerns.

asfasf

by boxxed - 2014-02-27 08:02:50

What do you mean by false shock? Did they confirm for you that a shock was delivered? There are some people out there that are sure that they received a shock, when the data says that it didn't. Doesn't happen often, but it's there.

From what you're saying, it sounds like you have concerns about whether a shock was appropriate or inappropriate. They can tell by reviewing the EGMs stored by the device. The device will record the EGM (think of it as an EKG) if a shock was delivered. From there they can analyze it and determine if the shock was appropriate or not.

Devices do get fooled at times. They've gotten very good at filtering out what is "fast but not dangerous" and "fast but is dangerous". But there can always be a circumstance here and there that will get past all of the algorithms and truly end up fooling the device. And we don't want algorithms to be TOO stringent either. This may be presumptuous to say, because I have never received a shock, but I would think that it's better to inappropriate deliver a shock than to inappropriately WITHHOLD a shock.

I would consider asking your doctor about it. He'll be able to tell you if it shocked for a "real" fast rhythm or a "fake" fast rhythm, and what changes he made to prevent it next time if it was actually inappropriate.

asfasf

by boxxed - 2014-02-27 09:02:44

The device will record something similar to an EKG of the rhythm leading up to the shock, the actual shock itself, and what happened afterwards

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