David Weiland, MD, Interventional Cardiologist, talks about the management of pacemakers and defibrillator devices.
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. DAVID WEILAND: Hi, I'm Dr. David Weiland of John Muir Health. I'm a cardiologist. And I've been working in the East Bay Area for 29 years now. One of the things I'm really interested in, in my practice is management of pacemaker and defibrillator devices. The advances in these devices has been so marked in the last four or five years, now we have all these MRI safe devices for our patients. One of the advantages I see in my care when taking care of patients with these devices is I become an expert in checking the devices of all the major companies, which I do in my practice. One of the big advances in the last three or four years is the ability to treat atrial arrhythmias in our patients with anti-tachy pacing. This is something that we program onto the device. And then we can monitor it, either as an outpatient or in the office. In numerous patients, we've seen episodes of atrial flutter recurrently occurring and then being treated with anti-tachy pacing, which has made a huge difference in patient outcomes. Patients are really thrilled with this form of therapy as it decreases their hospitalizations and medications.
