Morgado MJ, García M, Davos R. Análisis de la información y calidad de vida en el paciente portador de un desfibrilador automático implantable. Enferm Cardiol 2001; 22:27:31.

Analysis of the information and the quality of life in a patient carrying an  implantable automatic defibrillator

The implantable automatic defibrillator (IAD) is an efficient treatment of malignant tachyarrhythmias ventricles. The efficiency of the IAD apparatus is 99%. However, patients have communicated to us that they feel a small degree of insecurity facing the new situation which is the implantable defibrillator.
The principle objetive was to prove the proper process for the adaptation to a new life style in patients with a permanent IAD. And to see if the given information was appropriate to his/her understanding and the personal anxiety that may be experienced by knowing more about his/her illness.
The study took place in the Virgen de la Salud Hospital in the department of electro-physiology and arrhymia.
The cuestionary was made for the 14 patients (comprising 100% of the test subjects) who were implanted with IAD in 1999.
The areas of study were:
1) Knowledge of the illnes and usefulness of the IAD.
2) Psychological help pre and post-implant.
3) Modification of the attitudes in the daily life of patients.
4) Behavior after IAD therapy.
5) Life style quality.
The principal conclusions in this study were:
1) All the patients know the utility of the defibrillator and know how to act after IAD therapy.
2) There exists a lot of doubts about IAD performance.
3) Most patients do not need psychological assistance.
4) Significant modifications appear in the daily behavior of the patient.

Megía MA, Jiménez A, Madrid AH, Moro C.   Teléfonos móviles e interferencia con los desfibriladores automáticos implantables. Papel de la enfermería en la educación sanitaria del paciente portador del dispositivo antiarrítmico. Enferm Cardiol 2001; 22:32-34.

Mobile Phones and Interferences with Implantable Automatic Defibrillator.  Role of Nursing in the Sanitary Education of the Patient Bearing the Anti-arrhythmic Device.

The challenge of nursing as an educator for health, and its prevention in the field of research, together with the advance of high technology in medicine, entails a big effort in our daily formation.
While revising the bibliography for this topic I found, with pleasure, that the name of the first surgical nurse, Sandra Thomas, appears together with the first creator of the implantable automatic defibrillator, Dr. Mirowski. Sandra Thomas intervened in the first human insertion of the anti-arrythmic device in 1980 and later worked in clinical trials with medical groups.
The care of the IAD in Arrythmia consultations is more and more delegated to the nurse personnel and that is the reason why we need to know its functions.
With the technological advance, the IAD, one of the most effective treatments in the controlling of malignant arrythmias, the number of patients who bear the device has increased considerably, and the doubts and questions which the patients pose must be answered by the people in charge of such consults. At the same time, the mass media, television, radio, magazines and so on, subject us to a barrage of sensationalist news about the consequences which the use of mobile phones and electromagnetic devices may have on it.

Second Award in the 21st Spanish Congress of Nursing in Cardiology, Barcelona, 2001.

Saura Portillo E, Muñoz López M, Julià i Serra C.  Reanimación cardiopulmonar: La otra cara del éxito. Enferm Cardiol 2001; 22:35-40.

Saura Portillo E, Muñoz López M, Julià i Serra C.

In the last years, the approach to the population on the advanced cardio-pulmonary support (district hospitals and well-equiped and with trained personnel urgency services) has implied an increase in the number of people who survive after a cardiac arrest. These patients, in general, are transferred to third level public hospitals, which have diagnostic media and complex treatment at their disposal which are necessay for their management.
We all feel congratulated (sanitary personnel, families and people responsible for the sanitary system) when the success is complete, that is to say, in the case of recovery without neurological sequelae. But it seems that we often ignore that the number of patients with post-anoxic encephalopathy increases, too, and they also have the right to receive an adequate assistance.
The problem is that we have to define what we understand by an adequate assistance. It is necessary for us, society, sanitary personnel and sanitary responsible people, to reflect on this problem because the target which we have to look after is the patient and his/her family. That is why it is necessary to carry out a research of the situation and see how we can help them in a situation with such a high emotional impact and with a possibility of remaining with serious neurological sequel.

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