
A woman’s brain stimulator stopped working after her home struck by lightning - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/health/lightning-brain-implants.html
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seehafer
I used to design these devices (deep brain stimulators).

As part of the design process for every FDA-regulated product, you are obliged
to perform a risk analysis to judge the severity and probability of risks to a
patient using your product.

One of the risks was “Exposed to a strong current that could destroy/disable
the onboard electronics”. The design mitigation was a fail safe shutdown.

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Waterluvian
Sounds like it worked well:

"Fortunately, when he and his colleagues checked the woman’s implant, they
found that it had not been damaged. A safety function designed by the
manufacturer had taken its cue from the sudden current running through the
house and caused the device to switch itself off, pre-empting any interference
from the lightning. The programming was intact; the battery still had plenty
of charge.

When they fired up the device, it worked perfectly, none the worse for the
storm."

~~~
rsynnott
Seems like bad UX and/or user instruction, really; they should presumably have
the device warn of this happening, and tell end users how to turn it back on.
For a critical health device like this, having to visit the doctor to be told
“have you tried turning it on and off again” doesn’t seem ideal. What if it
had been a pacemaker or something?

~~~
bastawhiz
> they should presumably have the device warn of this happening

How? Shock your brain? It's an implant.

> What if it had been a pacemaker or something?

The same question stands. How do you make the device provide reasonable
feedback? Make your heart skip a few beats? How exactly is a pacemaker going
to warn a user about an error condition?

Given the circumstances, and the rarity of the error case, it sounds like the
device switching itself off is the best course of action.

~~~
rsynnott
There’s an external charger, per the article; it could presumably feed back to
that when charging.

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bastawhiz
If the implant is shut off for safety reasons related to electrical issues,
the last thing I'd want interacting with it in any way is the charger. Hell,
we can't even get Macbooks that don't fry USB devices.

~~~
microcolonel
> _Hell, we can 't even get Macbooks that don't fry USB devices._

Not sure why you'd assume the mainboard and peripheral circuit design on
MacBooks would be particularly good, they seem to make the same mistakes for
years on end.

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microcolonel
The title is incorrect it seems. The stimulator detected a fault condition,
and turned off. This is what it was designed to do, it was working just fine.
it really ought to be something more like:

> A woman's brain stimulator turned off after her home was struck by
> lightning.

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8note
can the title be changed to implant?

I first read it as brain simulator, and was expecting a eulogy for her dead ai

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sokoloff
When I read the title, I was expecting it to be a tongue-in-cheek futurist
reference to a television.

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stuntkite
I read it as "woman's brain simulator". I thought this was some crass
misogynist onion article.

Either "a simulator of a woman's mind stopped working after lightning struck
and blah blah shoes or something."

Or a "woman who had a simulator for a brain was struck by lightning and now
something something shoes something."

The title really should be changed to implant. Even without misreading the
word the title isn't great.

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Aardwolf
> A safety function designed by the manufacturer had taken its cue from the
> sudden current running through the house and caused the device to switch
> itself off

The way this is worded seems as if the device knows what current runs through
the _house_ wiring, through sensors in the house communicating with the
device. Is that the case? Or do they simply mean the electromagnetic field of
the lightning caused current in the implant?

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caycep
The Medtronic device is designed to shut off if it thinks it is delivering
enough current to go past a certain charge density in brain tissue
(calculated/assumed)

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caycep
Usually this happens when someone gets too close to a refrigerator; once in a
Prius.

That the device survived a lightning strike is pretty awesome. I would MRI her
head to make sure that there was no unintended ablation from the extra current
through the implanted electrodes, however.

*edit - I guess she was not struck by lightning, but her house was.

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fredsanford
An MRI with any metal effected by strong magnets in your body can be deadly.
The least of your worries would be tearing the implant out through your skin.
My lung doctor saved me from that when I was brought in unconscious in an
emergency. My wife tells me he went down the hall at a full run... I have an
ICD implanted.

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Doxin
I always assumed they run MRI patients through a metal detector first, seems
like a sensible precaution to me.

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jimrandomh
They do, at least the one time I was in one (which was fMRI for a research
study.)

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alanh
The nightmare scenario version of this is Michael Chrichton’s _The Terminal
Man_ (1972)

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qbrass
If I remember the book correctly, the device didn't malfunction, but was
positively reinforcing the brain to cause more seizures by stimulating
pleasure producing areas while disrupting the seizure.

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alanh
Yes — a different and more elaborate scenario, really. I suppose I was just
thinking of ways machines embedded in your brain can go wrong.

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nasredin
TFA is not about Hitachi Magic Wand personal massager :(

