Pacemaker: Your Smartphone Too Close Could Cause You To Faint

It's important for those wearing pacemakers or using an ICD to keep at least 6 to 8 inches of distance between their phone and the medical apparatus.

Recent findings to be presented at a joint meeting of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) at the annual CARDIOSTEM conference being held in Milan, Italy, will discuss the dangers of not keeping a safe distance between the two.

"Pacemakers can mistakenly detect electromagnetic interference (EMI) from smartphones as a cardiac signal, causing them to briefly stop working," lead author Dr. Carsten Lennerz, a resident in the Clinic for Heart and Circulatory Diseases at the German Heart Centre in Munich, Germany, said in a news release. "This leads to a pause in the cardiac rhythm of the pacing dependent patient and may result in syncope. For implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) the external signal mimics a life threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmia, leading the ICD to deliver a painful shock."

Device manufacturers and regulatory institutions, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recommend between 6-8 inches between pacemakers and smartphones.

Researchers tested if patients might be at risk by exposing 308 of them (147 pacemakers and 161 ICDs) to electromagnetic fields from three common smartphones, including the following: Samsung Galaxy 3, Nokia Lumia, and HTC One XL. The phones were placed on the patients' skin directly over their cardiac devices. However, only one of the patients was affected by the EMI fields.

Regardless of the low risk, Lennerz warned patients to heed previous safety guidelines.

"Interference between smartphones and cardiac devices is uncommon but can occur, so the current recommendations on keeping a safe distance should be upheld."

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