The 37 Military Hospital has successfully conducted its first ever Dual Chamber Pacemaker surgery for a 47-year-old woman who has lived with a blocked heart for 12 years.
Heart block is a condition where the electrical impulses that control the beating of the heart muscle are disrupted. The most serious type of heart block is known as complete or third-degree.
Heart block has symptoms such as shortness of breath, palpitations (irregular heartbeat), dizzy spells/fainting, and nausea.
Dual-Chamber Pacemaker is a type of surgery, which helps to correct the condition by carrying electrical impulses to the right ventricle and the right atrium of the heart to help control the timing of contractions between the two chambers.
The surgery does not allow the heart to dip below a programmed heart rate and ensures that the atrium, the top chamber of the heart and the ventricle the lower chamber of the heartbeat in sync with one another.
Colonel Dr Kwame Acheampong Adomako, the Head of Cardio Center 37 Military Hospital, addressing the media after the surgery, said the patient’s blocked heart was due to a family history of hypertension and diabetes.
He said because the patient was hypertensive and diabetic, the nerves that needed to carry messages to other parts of the body were unable to do so.
The Cardiologist explained that the electronic pulse generator implanted in the heart would help the patient live her normal life without any sudden cardiac arrest or death.