The damaged tissue disrupts normal electrical communication pathways within the heart. As a result, the ventricles often are not synchronized, as they are in a healthy heart, and cannot adequately pump enough blood to meet the body s needs. Patients with failing hearts often feel light-headed or faint, become exhausted easily and ultimately find it difficult to walk even a short distance across a room. Other symptoms include fluid buildup in the lungs and puffiness or swelling in the feet, ankles, legs or abdomen. In an outpatient procedure, the Contak CD, a battery-powered device about the size of a wristwatch, is placed under the skin near the shoulder.
Physicians thread the three electricity-delivering leads into a vein near the collarbone.
Two leads are guided to the right ventricle of the heart, just as in a pacemaker implantation. The third lead goes to the left ventricle and helps synchronize beats of the two ventricles. The preliminary result, say researchers, is stronger pumping by the heart. Only half of patients with mild to moderate heart failure survive for five years and only half of patients with severe failure survive for one year, researchers have reported. Experts estimate that by 2005, heart failure will be the No. 1 cause of death.