Hello, Heather:
You asked, "How are pacemakers made?" I reply, ask Kim. She knows everything there is to know about pacemaker manufacture.
You know, most people have never seen a real, working pacemaker. Let me tell you something about very early models of pacemakers. Pacemakers were around before they made them small enough to implant under the skin. The first really useful pacemakers were about as big as a computer monitor, contained all sort of dials and plugged into the wall with a 50 foot cord. If a patient needed one of these, his world was limited to the 50 feet of electric cord.
The first small pacemakers were about the size of a floppy disk drive. Believe it or not, they were redesigned musical metronomes. If you do not know what a metronome is, ask the music teacher to show you an electric one. These were developed for children who needed pacemakers.
Pacemakers that were able to be implanted under the skin were first made in 1958 in Sweden. Since then there have been thousands of designs of pacemakers. They have gone from looking like hockey pucks, to being square, to being very small. Batteries have changed from ones that required 6 to work the pacemaker (and still last less than 2 years) to tiny batteries where only 1 will last for 10 years. It is really amazing stuff.
If you have any more questions about pacemakers, please write to me. I will try to answer it quickly (but, remember, I travel a lot and it may take a few days to get an answer back to you).
It's nice having you as a Key Pal,
DJ
Delos Johnson