iCD in power plant

Electromagnetic Interference of ICDs/pacemakers

by Selwyn - 2018-06-06 11:40:28

Unless someone uses your exact equipment, you cannot get a definite answer. 

I would seek the ICD  manufacturer's advice about your problem, though even then, advice will be limited as they will not know the strength, and frequency of the electromagnetic interference in your workplace. 

I am no engineer. Perhaps there is a way of measuring EMI that does not put you at risk. ( eg. near field probes or  antenna and a spectrum analyzer.)?

I did wonder whether you could wear some shielding like a Faraday Cage? Perhaps there is need for a modern equivalent of chain-mail?!!!

Welcome to the Club. I was told to keep my PM at least 24 inches away from my induction hob in the kitchen!

Selwyn 

The problem is ....

by Theknotguy - 2018-06-06 13:18:55

The problem is, no one will give you a definitive answer.  We had another person on the forum about two years back who worked in a power plant and didn't have any problems.  Don't know what position he had.  You might be able to search the forum and see if you can contact directly.  However I think he had a pacemaker and not an ICD.  

The biggest point being you have an ICD.  Pacemakers and ICD's are different.  Someone was telling me (not sure if it's true or not) the ICD can be disabled by a large magnetic field.  In other words the large magnetic field will set the ICD into the test/reading mode and disable the ability to fire. So if you need the ICD to fire and it's disabled, it probably means you won't survive.  And, since you won't be able to tell externally when the ICD is disabled you could end up dead when you need the ICD to fire and it doesn't.  

I'm not sure if the ICD manufacturer will give you any information beyond the standard answers and that won't be any help for you.  Next question is if you have any way of telling if your ICD is disabled?  I know the person doing a reading on your ICD can tell that from the maintenance unit, but I don't know if there is any external way to do that.  And, since you won't know if your unit is disabled when you walk through the power plant you could be in grave danger and not know it.  

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I'd rather come down on the negative side and have a greater chance of keeping you alive.  Looks like the early retirement is in your near future.  Maybe you can go into consulting without having to go into the power plant?  

ICD in power plant

by Brooklyn 1 - 2018-06-07 00:40:10

Thank you both very much for your input.  I did get in touch with the manufacturer and they could not give me specific data or safety information. I’ll keep looking into it but if there is any chance whatsoever that I could be in danger the decision to retire is that much easier, thanks again!

no answer

by dwelch - 2018-06-21 00:43:09

I didnt work in a power plant but we had a shake table and we asked medtronic about it this was lets say 20 years ago, and they told us to get a gauss meter and measure around it when it is running.  For our shake table and the big coil that drives it I would have had to be within 6 inches to have the field strong enough to affect the pacer.  Was told something along the lines of it would confuse the pacer and it would not pace, once removed from the field it would return to normal so if for example I passed out "all you had to do" was move me away.

These days I doubt you will get any kind of information that you can then turn around and sue over if you act on it and something happens or worse like a long list of appliances from coffee makers to toothbrushes there is a pacer warning, not because it can hurt you but to try to defend against lawsuits.

As you know your pacer works on electrical signals it can detect and then deliver, metal leads are involved as well as your own body chemistry.  A strong enough field, particularly at the slow frequencies (60hz, etc) can have some sort of affect on the detection of your electrical signals.  So one would expect there is a field strength that has a negative effect on the device.

there is the magnetic issue as well sure, I assume all the devices have a batter test mode, but not sure, all of my pacers have, I dont have an ICD but it has a pacer functions as well if I understand right, and it has a battery so a battery mode would make sense enough of a field to close that relay and put the device in magnet or battery test mode is undesireable.  I have to think about it though if you could get that kind if field from a large generator, it might need to be a smaller tighter field like the magnets we use for that mode.

Fields like this go like the area of a sphere one over the radius squared.  4 foot away is not half the strength of 2 foot away but a quarter the strength, the field strength drops off very rapidly, so it may be  case that you have to hug the thing while it is running or get very close.

There are some cheap gauss meters you can get, I got one just to check it out but I think it was garbage, you put it right next to the right things and it would beep or the light turn on or whatever, but I wouldnt trust it as far as i can throw it for really knowing a bad field from a good one.

As far as the what about the magnet mode thing that one you can easily test by simply taking your pulse, if as you walk toward or away, so long as your rate at the itme is not the same as magnet mode it should jump to and stay fixed at a rate, perhaps walk briskly to get your rate up, then try again.  if the device is confused I would expect something similar to happen as well, perhaps you fall/change to your unpaced rate, granted some of this depends on your device and how they are using it...

bottom line I cant and wont give you a definitive answer and this day and age unless perhaps with an NDA and other legal agreements I dont think the device vendor nor the power plant equipment vendor will give you a definitve answer in the yes it is safe direction, they will be happy to give you the stay away and quit work kinds of answers.  Perhaps there are published papers on the topic that might give a rough idea of the field strength and then with the right meter you can test it.

Is it that you work in the faclity but generally keep a distance away from the equipment (while running), or is it more of the you are in close with the equipment on a regular basis?

BTW what happened with me at that job those years ago, is at the end of the day they put a red and white plaque on the entrance to the shaker room to the effect of implanted medical devices may be affected or some such thing.  I would expect this day and age your facility would have taken it on themselves to have done the research, for legal protection reasons, you dont necessarily want to spark that off and cause them to force you to leave just in case or just so they dont have to do the research and instead assume no devices are allowed anywhere in the facility.  

I would hope the ICD vendor would at least be able to tell you if there are fields you can be in that would cause a false positive and shock you.  And/or other situations, MRI, etc that might confuse the device in the shock you direction rather in the it wont work direction.

I hope this non answer answer helps...

they record...

by dwelch - 2018-06-21 01:28:39

reading another post tonight...todays pacers record events...perhaps not how you want to experiment, but one would hope that if you were affected by the generators, etc, such that the device got confused that that might be recorded and the doc/tech would see it on your next vist.