Last year, there were reports that iPods and pacemakers were a bad combination, and that the music player might cause the pacemaker to malfunction. The concern was that the strong magnet inside the iPod could interfere with the electromagnetic technology of the pacemaker.

New research from a scientist at the FDA, however, disputes that theory. Howard Bassen tested four different iPods against a pacemaker set in salt water and found that the iPods could not disrupt the pacemaker's operation.

So if you have a pacemaker, it may be safe for you to rock on and rock out with your personal music device. But as always, don't take it from the Internet...talk to your doctor first.

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It would be great to hear that all medical devices were as efficient at a nuclear-powered pacemaker, but that's generally not the case. This week, a doctor who implanted a patient with a pacemaker with onboard nuclear power said that, after 34 years, the device was still going strong.

For those keeping count, the pacemaker was installed in 1973. Yikes! Although nuclear-powered pacemakers are no longer used, the overall cost of this 34 year-old product was pegged at its original $5,000 price tag, plus $19,000 in follow-up costs since then.

This compares to follow-up costs of nearly $55,000 for current battery-powered pacemakers (which don't last 34 years one one battery).

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A man, who for 6 years was in a near-vegetative state, is now speaking and drinking on his own, in spite of his severe brain injuries.

Is it a medical miracle?

Kind of. The man's amazing recovery is actually attributed to a "Brain Pacemaker," a device that -- like a traditional pacemaker -- is implanted under the skin of a person's chest. However, instead of sending electrodes to "jump start" the heart, the Brain Pacemaker instead works in the area of the brain controlling consciousness. Essentially, it zaps near-vegetative patients into a more alert state.

Medtronic Inc, the company manufacturing the device, will be testing their product on 11 more patients in the current pilot study. If successful, it's thought there could be anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 patients in a similar state who might benefit from this kind of therapy.

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So a couple of news bits came out together at the end of last week:

#1 Cell phones are, after all, okay to use in hospitals. This is good news not because I think people need to spend more time on their mobile phones than they already do, but if there's any place that deserves the right for impromptu or impulsive phone calls it's in a hospital, where lives can change in mere moments.

and

#2 Store anti-theft devices (the kind that stand on either side of the entrance) may cause pacemakers and internal defibrillators to malfunction. It's only happened two times (documented times, anyway), but that's enough to cause some concern, obviously.

Ironic, somehow.

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