Nursing the Patient With an Artificial Pacemaker

Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over more than a century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives highlights articles selected to fit today's topics and times. In this article from AJN's April 1964 issue, author Anne F. Heller discusses the science of "transistorized" artificial cardiac pacemakers and the care of patients who received these implants. Standard care included a pre-op soap-and-water enema and 10 days of post-op antibiotics. Readers were cautioned about the breakability of the large glass bottle attached to post-op chest tubes. The pacemaker itself cost $400. (To read the full article, go to https://links.lww.com/AJN/A229.) In this month's issue, Mary Ann Leavitt offers an update on the use of today's implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, cardiac resynchronization therapy, and ventricular assist devices. Newer "pacemakers" can now be used in primary prevention therapy for patients who are at greater risk for arrhythmias, and patient data can be transmitted wirelessly to the clinician's office. The latest devices can cost upward of $30,000.-Betsy Todd, MPH, RN.