Defi patients put recommendations to driving ability often not

Defi patients and the car

Nearly half of the cardiac patients who have been implanted for threatening cardiac arrhythmias and impaired ventricular cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), remember not mind that she, aware of their limited driving ability and the recommendation not to drive car her doctor.

Well over one-third (41,67%) does not follow the recommendation on the matter and disobeyed the ban occasionally or regularly. This is the result of a recent study by the University Heart Center Hamburg, which. On the 80 Annual Meeting of the German Cardiac Society (DGK) was presented. In the Congress Center Rosengarten Mannheim days of 23. to 26. April 8.500 25 cardiologists countries. "Evidently it must be even more it dismissed talks and the medical report that the issue driving ban here a higher value gets," said study author Dr. Friederike Hartel. Even better documentation is needed from medical-forensic point of view.

The background of the study: Given the increasing mobility of heart patients need their doctor increasingly also deal with the question of whether in respect to the particular disease or therapy roadworthiness could be affected. For ICD patients there are national and international recommendations that take into account possible limitations due to potential hazards.

At the University Heart Center Hamburg ICD patients receive at discharge an individual recommendation to driving ability, which is also documented in the medical report. For the presented in Mannheim study previously 60 patients were interviewed standardized under outpatient follow-up to this recommendation. At the surveyed patients (mean age 68,5 years) the duration of the recommended waiver varied on the car steering between one and three months. Although 68,33 percent of study participants expressed understanding of a disease-related ban, but who actually held it only 58,33 percent.

Source:

DGK Abstract P1775: F. Hartel et al, Guidelines for ban in ICD patients: Expectations and Reality. Clin Res Cardiol 103, 1 Suppl April 2014

Source: Mannheim [DGK]