A heart pacemaker is a small, battery-operated device that sends a signal to your heart. The signal makes your heart beat at the correct pace.

Pacemakers may be used:

• To correct abnormal heart rhythms. The heart may beat too slowly, too fast, or in an irregular manner.
• To better coordinate the beating of the heart in people with heart failure. These are called biventricular pacemakers.

When your heart is weakened, gets too large, and does not pump blood very well, you are at high risk for abnormal heartbeats that can lead to sudden cardiac death.

• An implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a device that detects heart rhythms. It quickly sends an electrical shock to the heart to change the rhythm back to normal.
• Most biventricular pacemakers can also work as implantable cardio-defibrillators (ICD).

The most common cause of heart failure is coronary artery disease (CAD), which is a narrowing of the small blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. CAD may become worse and make it harder to manage your symptoms.

Watch this video about:Coronary artery disease

After performing certain tests, your health care provider may feel that opening a narrowed or blocked blood vessel will improve your heart failure symptoms. Suggested procedures may include:

• Angioplasty and stent placement
• Heart bypass surgery

Blood that flows between the chambers of your heart, or out of your heart into the aorta, must pass through a heart valve. These valves open enough to allow blood to flow through. They then close, keeping blood from flowing backward.

When these valves do not work well (become too leaky or too narrow), blood does not flow correctly through the heart to the body. This problem may cause heart failure or make heart failure worse.

Heart valve surgery may be needed to repair or replace one of the valves.

Some types of surgery are done for severe heart failure when other treatments no longer work. These procedures are often used when a person is waiting for a heart transplant. They are also sometimes used long term in cases when transplant is not planned or possible.

Examples of some of these devices include left ventricular assist devices (LVAD), right ventricular assist devices (RVAD), or a total artificial hearts. They are considered for use if you have severe heart failure that cannot be controlled with medicine or a special pacemaker.

• Ventricular assist devices (VAD) help your heart pump blood from the pumping chambers of your heart to either the lungs or to the rest of your body These pumps may be implanted in your body or connected to a pump outside your body.
• You may be on a waiting list for a heart transplant. Some people who get a VAD are very ill and may already be on a heart-lung bypass machine.
• Total artificial hearts are being developed, but are not yet in wide use.

Devices inserted through a catheter such as intra-aortic balloon pumps (IABP) are sometimes used.

• An IABP is a thin balloon that is inserted into an artery (most often in the leg) and threaded into the main artery exiting the heart (aorta).
• These devices can help maintain heart function in the short term. Because they can be placed quickly, they are useful for people who have a sudden and severe decline in heart function
• They are used in people who are waiting for recovery or for more advanced assist devices.

CHF - surgery; Congestive heart failure - surgery; Cardiomyopathy - surgery; HF - surgery; Intra-aortic balloon pumps - heart failure; IABP - heart failure; Catheter based assist devices - heart failure

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Updated by: Michael A. Chen, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, WA. Also reviewed by David C. Dugdale, MD, Medical Director, Brenda Conaway, Editorial Director, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.