How long do pacemakers last?
This depends on how often the pacemaker is used to pace the heart and the amount of energy used for each paced heartbeat. If a pacemaker is only being used infrequently, one can expect about 10 years of battery life with at least a six month warning that the battery is running down. We can detect a low battery warning in our office during a routine pacer check in our pacer clinic. If a pacemaker is being used constantly then it will usually last between five and 8 years again depending on the amount of energy the pacer needs to deliver to the heart for every heartbeat. Larger pacemakers have bigger batteries and will generally last longer then the most cosmetically appealing smaller units. In the 1960’s, a Florida company marketed a nuclear powered pacemaker. This pacemaker used a small pile of Plutonium-236. P-236 will naturally become warm due to neutron decay. The friction of the neutrons passing through the metal generates heat. A thermocouple in the pacemaker then can generate a c
