Though pacemakers require only small amounts of energy (about 1 millionth of a Watt), their batteries have to be replaced periodically, which means multiple surgeries for patients. Researchers have searched for ways to prolong battery life — trying to generate energy to power a pacemaker using blood sugar, or the motion of the hands and legs — but these methods either interfere with metabolism or require a more drastic surgery, such as passing a wire from the limbs to the chest area.
\nAerospace engineers M. Amin Karami and Daniel J. Inman, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, have developed a prototype device that could power a pacemaker using a source that is surprisingly close to the heart of the matter: vibrations in the chest cavity that are due mainly to heartbeats.
\nIn their method, vibrations in the chest cavity deform a layer of piezoelectric material, which is able to convert mechanical stress into electrical current. Tests indicate that the device could perform at heart rates from 7 to 700 beats per minute (well below and above the normal range), and that it could deliver eight times the energy required for a pacemaker. Furthermore, the authors write, the amount of energy generated is always larger than the amount required to run a pacemaker, regardless of heart rate.
\nThough the team has yet to develop a prototype that is biocompatible, they say that the potential to package this energy harvester with pacemakers gives it an advantage over competing methods.
\nU-M Department of Aerospace Engineering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Though pacemakers require only small amounts of energy (about 1 millionth of a Watt), their batteries have to be replaced periodically, which means multiple surgeries for patients. Researchers have searched for ways to prolong battery life — trying to generate energy to power a pacemaker using blood sugar, or the motion of the hands and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-2462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-news","tag-cardiology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2462"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17958,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions\/17958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}