Defibrillators: now kinder and gentler?

    Wow, first bi-phasic defibrillation (see the subsection of the Wikipedia article on this per link) to reduce required delivered energy and now this to go way further in reducing same. "Rather than one big shock to the heart, a series of 5 small pulses can also restore our heart beats, scientists show. And it uses 84% less energy".  

    The thing about defibrillation is that, yeah, it saves the patient's life but with myocardial tissue damage from the defibrillator's energy injection. Less energy required to normalize the heartbeat = less tissue damage.  The tissue damage reduction may even be exponential!

 

    For AEDs, the ones in public places, the risks to "amateur" users giving care on the spot is greatly reduced by lower energy delivery. Newer Defibrillators are of designs that may allow conversion to this new lower energy technique via mere software upgrade!

   The greatest effect may be in the area of implantable defibrillators.

  The new lower energy method may allow smaller implantables that run longer on battery charge and whose actions may go undetected by their patients. They may be able to react and defibrillate without the patient sensing any symptoms of the event.