New concern over MP3 players, pacemakers, and defibrillators
A recent study has shed new light over the potential for MP3 players to interfere with pacemakers and defibrillators, and it’s not the MP3 music players that are causing the interference, it’s the earphones.
The magnet-containing earphones of MP3 players caused detectable interference in almost a quarter of tests conducted with patients, in a recent study of 60 patients from Boston’s Beth Israel Medical Center and Harvard.
Significant cardiac interference occurred when earphones with a field strength as little as 10 gauss were placed close to the chest wall and near the implanted device, as they might be when draped around the neck or shoulders. Some of the earphones studied generated field strengths in excess of 200 gauss. Field strength fell off dramatically when earphones were moved just a small distance from the implanted devices, and in most cases, moving the headphones away from the chest restored normal cardiac device function.
via MedPage Today, November 9, 2008
Lee S, et al “Electromagnetic interference of implanted cardiac devices by MP3 player headphones” Circulation 2008; 118(Suppl 2): S596. Abstract 662.
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