TRENTO. At the age of 100, 99 to be exact, she underwent heart surgery to install a pacemaker. The Lady Virginia was operated on in recent daysSanta Clara hospital and now, after a few days in hospital, he was able to go home.
«What deeply moved us was the extreme kindness, as well as the great professionalism of all the healthcare personnel. Therefore we would like to thank Dr Fabrizio Guarracini, Dr. Aristotele Porceddu and Dr. Massimiliano Marinias well as all the nursing staff», wrote the daughter of Spormaggiore in a letter on behalf of all the brothers.
The woman had been taken to the Santa Chiara hospital emergency room with a very low heart rate. «She had arrived in what we call total blockage in the jargon, with a heart rate of less than 35 beats per minute, but conscious, capable of understanding and wanting, with all the frailties of a 99-year-old person. Next to her very motivated children. We told them very honestly that it had never happened to us to undergo an operation of this kind on such an elderly person as pacemakers are usually placed on people between 70 and 90 years old, there are some records 95-96 but centenarians are really very rare», explains Dr. Massimiliano Marini, head of the electrophysiology laboratory at the Santa Chiara hospital.
“We talked for a long time with family members – he adds – explaining to them that we could have done a completely useless operation from a certain point of view, because life that goes out does it also through the slowing of the heart rate. They thought about it and in the end, the next day, they decided on the implant».
An operation that lasted an hour, under local anesthesia with a mild sedation in consideration of the woman’s age. The lady then woke up and was transferred to the beds in the emergency room where she had been hospitalized. The next day she carried out the necessary checks and a few days later she was discharged with a regular heartbeat.
«The pacemaker is a machine that we program for a beat similar to the physiological one – explains Dr. Marini – In this case the lady was discharged with a programmed heartbeat of sixty beats per minute, pacemaker dependent as they say».
Approximately 350 pacemaker implants are performed in the cardiology department of Trento every yearor. To this number must be added about 100 defibrillator implants, which are more complex pacemakers, and then minor implants. In total there are about 500 interventions. But when is it necessary to insert these electronic devices?
“When the electrical system of the heart shuts down – explains the cardiologist – This is a classic sign of senescence, sometimes linked to heart disease, but in such elderly patients this happens because the electrical system wears out, as in the case of a light bulb that breaks and we replace it».
Obviously, even the professionals of S. Chiara, when they found themselves in front of the elderly lady, wondered about the opportunity of an intervention of this type in a subject so old.
«In such elderly patients it is difficult because we are on the verge of therapeutic obstinacy.
In this case, however, the lady was alert, aware, capable of a relationship, she did not have a support administrator and decided for herself. She herself told us: “If we have to do it”. Obviously there was fear, because she was faced with a totally new scenario, we couldn’t know the possible complications. The golden rule is that the patient must leave the hospital at least as he entered, if better … better. In this case he came out better but we couldn’t have known it before ».