AMY’S SHOCK THERAPY
Mother of three knew her heart could stop at any moment but pioneering device gave hope
March 2, 2004
SINCE the age of five Amy Williams has lived with a condition that meant her heart could stop without warning at any moment.
But yesterday, the 31-year-old mother of three started a new life. She was given a new device to ensure that her heart keeps going. Any time that it threatens to stop beating, the device will kick-in to restore normality. Amy is one of the first people in Britain to get the gadget, designed by Medtronic.
The Maximo device is about the size of a stopwatch and has been implanted under her skin. It will give her heart an electric shock when it malfunctions.
‘It will make a huge difference to my life,’ says Amy who had the equipment inserted in an hour-long procedure at the London Heart Hospital. ‘Hopefully, it will never need to go off, but knowing that the worst thing that can happen is a shock rather than dropping dead makes a huge difference.’
The device continually monitors the heart and will deliver a shock when it detects an abnormal heart rhythm — known as an arrhythmia — which can lead to a cardiac arrest.
The electrical impulses should restore the heart’s normal rhythm. The machine reacts in seconds to a problem, and that speed is vital for patients because the longer an arrhythmia episode lasts before therapy is delivered, the higher the risk of fainting or worse.
The device is designed to last around ten years — and it gives instant readouts of how the heart has been behaving.
Amy, who had it implanted around the collarbone, has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM, a condition that affects one in 500 people.
It is caused by an enlarged heart muscle that pumps blood inefficiently. The electrical signals that regulate the heart pumping get mixed up and this can result in the heart stopping without warning.
‘It is an inherited condition. My mother didn’t know she had it until she was 30 and I was diagnosed aged five when we were all checked after her diagnosis. Mum’s father had the same condition and died young,’ says Amy.
‘I didn’t have any symptoms until I was 16. I then started having arrhythmias, or abnormal heartbeats. I took medication to control them and have been on it ever since.
‘HCM varies in how it affects people. Some have no symptoms, others end up having heart failure, and you can get dangerous types of arrhythmias where you hear of people just dropping dead.
‘I have been having these more dangerous arrhythmias for about two years. ‘once you know you have the condition, the only thing you can do is be careful.
‘you have to be monitored regularly, take the medication and not over-exert yourself. Having this device means I will be more hopeful about what lies ahead.’
restore the supply is crucial in order to minimise damage to heart tissue.
Normally, anti-clotting drugs such as thrombolytics or fibrinolytics are administered by doctors via injection. These target and destroy a compound called fibrin, a tough protein that forms a mesh that slows blood, encouraging a clot to form.
The drugs cause the clot to break up, but this process can take hours, and brings a risk of bleeding.
Patients may also need a stent to open a blocked artery or more anticlotting medication, including aspirin. The new drug, selatogrel, is thought to work earlier in the process.
Clots develop when fatty deposits in the blood vessel wall rupture: blood cells gather around the area and clump together to form a clot. Selatogrel is thought to disrupt this process, preventing the full clot from forming.