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I recently posted about my demanding mom and got so many helpful replies and I thank you all.


My mom has a pacemaker and she's 89. The pacemaker was implanted because she has bradycardia (slow heartbeat). She has CHF, arthritis, fibromyalgia, sciatica, and non-diabetic neuropathy. She smoked for over 68 years and only stopped after the CHF diagnosis. She's starting to have a harder time walking and doing things around the house.


She recently told me she needs more assistance and wanted to move in with me and I said no. Other options will have to be explored.


My question is to others who have (or had) parents who had pacemakers: how long has it kept your parent alive? And has anyone passed while having a pacemaker?


Just wanting to prepare myself, I guess.


Thank you.

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My mother is over a year in with it. She has CHF, arthritis, incontinence, depression and mobility issues. She is 95. She just went into a NH. She survived Covid last month.

I’m really serious with this question. I am not joking. Can it be turned off? All she does is complain that she is living too long. And I have agreed with her. It has NOT improved her quality of life.

Can the cardiologist turn it off if she requests it?
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No, it will not restart a heart. Just helps to keep it in rhythm.
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My mom with CHF died about 18 months after her pacemaker was implanted.
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Pacemakers address only the ELECTRICAL system of the heart, the function to cause a heart beat. It has nothing to do with the overall aging heart, and with heart failure. Those things are what will likely cause death. People live for many decades with a pacer if other parts of the heart are healthy. In your own Mom's case the other parts of her heart are not healthy. But it isn't pacer or lack of pacer that will make the diffence for her other THAN that he heart rate will not be allowed, by the pacemaker, to get too low, so she will never die of too low a heart rate. I hope that makes sense. It matters not a fig what anyone else's experience is with a pacer as they will have had it put in for their own reason at their own age with their own underlying heath condidtions.

So again, it is unlikely, with a pacer, that your Mom will die of a slow heart rate. But she certainly may die of any other condition.

Look up pacemakers online and you will find a wealth of information.
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Laura, my dad had a pacemaker and defibrillator. I was hugely concerned that those would keep him alive after he died. The cardiologist explained that neither piece of hardware would keep a dead body alive. This was true.

My dad died from his CHF, even with the PM/defib his heart couldn't pump the blood through his system.

I do know that it improved his quality of life, he wasn't exhausted all the time when he had them installed. He lived for 10 years and the 1st 5 were greatly improved by this hardware. The last 5, he was struggling but, he did pretty good with assistance.
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