Remote control improves quality of life in elderly pacemaker patients versus standard ambulatory‐based follow‐up

Abstract

Remote device monitoring has a significant impact on HRQoL in pacemaker patients, increasing its levels up to 6 months after implant.

Health-related quality of life on tele-monitoring for users with pacemakers 6 months after implant: the NORDLAND study, a randomized trial

“…On the other hand, in NORDLAND study the MLHF questionnaire score was improved in the studied groups (21.78% vs. 54.42%) and at 6 months there were statistically significant differences between the groups. These results were similar to those obtained in other studies in which HRQoL questionnaires for specific heart-diseases such as MLHFQ [ 30 ], AQUAREL [ 18 ], Duke Activity Status Index (DASI) [ 10 ] were improved. In all the studies, similar results have been found regardless their research design, either randomized or non-randomized.…”

“…Several studies [ 10 , 16 – 18 , 30 ] have assessed HRQoL in users with pacemakers. In these clinical trials, the SF-36 [ 16 , 17 , 30 ] and EQ5D [ 10 , 18 ] questionnaires were used to assess HRQoL. Results were improved but no significant differences between both groups in either the effectiveness or the safety of TM and HM were found.…”

“…Coinciding with previous trials [ 16 , 17 , 30 ] there was not found significant improvement in health-related quality of life for both groups between the enrolment and the last month of the study. In other more recent studies [ 17 , 18 ], users with pacemaker implants included in both groups reported significant improvements in HRQoL assessed through the EQ-5D [ 10 ] and SF-36 [ 18 ]. On the other hand, in NORDLAND study the MLHF questionnaire score was improved in the studied groups (21.78% vs. 54.42%) and at 6 months there were statistically significant differences between the groups.…”

“…In addition, the number of unscheduled visits to the hospital for assistance at the emergency services and hospitalizations can be reduced [ 4 , 14 ]. In the last decade a limited number of studies have shown results on efficiency [ 4 , 7 , 15 , 16 ] particularly based on patient-reported outcomes such as HRQoL [ 10 – 12 , 15 – 18 ]. On the other part, a study published recently affirms that telemedicine is not significantly more effective than usual care on mental and physical Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) [ 19 ].…”

Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients With Permanent Cardiac Pacing

“…One longitudinal study conducted in Italy assessed two groups of individuals with a cardiac pacemaker, with and without remote follow-up, and verified that HRQoL assessed by the AQUAREL resulted in better scores obtained by the group with remote follow-up in the three first months of follow-up, especially in the domains Arrhythmia and Chest Discomfort. 21 Similar to this study's results, other studies using the AQUAREL to assess the HRQoL among patients with PPI report that the domain with the worst score was Dyspnea. All these studies, however, report the domain that was best rated as being Chest Discomfort, which diverges from this study's results, in which Arrhythmia was the domain best rated.…”