Quality of Mechanical Ventilation and Pacemaker Setting

Increasingly, patients who require mechanical ventilator therapy already have implanted cardiac devices such as pacemakers, CRTs, or ICDs. These devices influence ventilation quality by setting the lower limit heartrate. Because gas transport capacity in the blood is partly determined by heartrate, the setting of the lower limit heartrate of these devices can limit the transport of CO2 to the lungs and the transport of O2 to the tissue.