CirculIatlion OCTOBER 1967 VOL . XXXVI NO . 4 AN OFFICIAL JOURNAL of 0 te AMERICAN ] 4 EART ASSOCIATION Editorial Follow-up Care for Patients with Cardiac Pacemakers THE 1-YEAR MORTALITY

THE 1-YEAR MORTALITY of paced patients is at present of the order of 10 to 15%1 and the morbidity associated with this form of treatment is continuously falling as apparatus is improved and greater skill is acquired in its use. Unfortunately arrangements for the follow-up of paced patients have seldom kept pace with technical and surgical advances so that responsibility for the aftercare of the patient is often ill-defined. One solution to this problem is for patients to attend regularly at a pacemaker clinic after discharge from the hospital. Several such clinics are now in existence in Europe and the United States which provide facilities for dealing with paced patients that cannot be achieved at less specialized centers. At each visit the response of the patient to treatment can be assessed, any drug therapy reconsidered, and an evaluation of pacemaker function carried out. The frequency with which patients should attend such a clinic varies with the clinical state and with the results of the previous pacemaker tests, but in the absence of any apparent abnormality an initial visit 1 month after discharge from the hospital and subsequent visits at 3 monthly intervals have proved satisfactory. The establishment of such clinics at strategic centers throughout the country also allows malfunctioning pacing systems to be dealt with rapidly and avoids the necessity for patients to travel long distances to the hos-