Mri And Pacemakers

[fruitsalad]

In these days of technology, you would of thought, there would be a way, of doing an mri if a person, has a pacemaker, Mr Fruit needs an mri  on just his head, they are faffing about trying to find out if his particular, pacemaker can go into the scanner, its a new type only fitted in February, this year, it got me thinking  if someone invented some sort of shield say from the neck down, and just the head go in the machine, or are the magnets so strong it probably wouldn't work.

[Hymie]

The magnetic fields generated are very strong, you might believe that the pacemaker is a modern unit that would be OK in the scanner; but what if it’s not, who would you blame – the hospital for not checking?

[SlackAlice]

I had a 'pacemaker' fitted last year and now carry a "Pacemaker Identification Card".

On one side it has all my personal details ie. Name, birthdate, NHS id, patient id. The other side states Device name and Mnfr, Serial No, date fitted and by which Hospital. The last line states MRI Conditional System : Yes.

[fruitsalad]

I quite agree Hymie, but I've given them the pacemaker identification card, as slack mentions below, to copy but they are still being very cautious, so now I feel they need to say yes or no to the mri

[rowanwitch]

It's more that there was a time when  magnets were  used to adjust pacemakers, big magnets in an MRI.... Scary if it changes your settings

...modern ones are usually  adjusted wirelessly. And most are classed as mri conditional, the only problem would be if it was fairly recent and still loose as the body hasn't bedded it in with scar tissue