XIX Sympozjum Srodowiskowe PTZE - materialy.pdf

XIX Sympozjum PTZE, Worliny 2009
ELECTROMAGNETIC AWARENESS
AND EDUCATION OF CARDIAC IMPLANT PATIENTS
Introduction
Anna Pławiak-Mowna 1 , Andrzej Krawczyk 2
1
University of Zielona Gora, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science
and Telecommunications, Institute of Computer Engineering and Electronics
2 Central Institute of Labour Protection – National Research Institute, Warsaw
The number of people whose work or live exposes them to artificial (man-made)
electromagnetic fields is growing. The awareness of coexistence EMF sources within the
healthcare and everyday environment is rising. The national and international associations
(institutions, legislatures) have assigned different limit values for electromagnetic radiation
levels in various standards and regulations.
Everybody is exposed to electromagnetic radiation, for example radiofrequency radiation
from cellular antennas, cellular towers, broadcast transmission towers. Cardiac implant
wearers are special group of society, because of there is possibility of harmful interference.
Cardiac device implant patients are interested in direct access to real and actual information
about living with implanted device (in aspects of medical and health care areas, implantation
procedures and therapy and products overview). That information can be available through
specialized webpage. The authors demonstrate the basic specification of education cardiac
device implant wearers about electromagnetism and specially electromagnetic interferences.
The Pacemaker Patients Education – Web Pages Review
In a high-tech age the expectation of pacemaker-wearers for better healthcare is rising.
A variety of public education materials are available in consulting-room/ hospital/etc and
there is a possibility to take brochures/folders/etc home. Nowadays, Web portals are being
used in patient education.
Many active specialized web pages present general information about pacemakers, about the
procedure and the care afterwards [2,3], about devices that may interfere with pacemakers
[1,4,5,6]. Patients need to be an active participant in their education (for example by
interactive tutorial [7]). Medical staff need the tools to help patients understand their diseasestate,
treatment options and living with disease (and implant).
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