[Follow up and treatment of pacemaker-patients in advanced age (author's transl)].

Most of the pacemaker-patients are in the eight decade of life. The continuous follow ups of the patient with a pacemaker system have to reguard the often advanced age, the cardiac basic disease, other concomitant diseases and futhermore technical details of the device, the date of implantation and the expected longevity of the power source. The risk of the patient by pacemaker failure in the underlying rhythm disturbance can be estimated by short extinguish of the pacing activity. The additional medical treatment is determined by the findings and must be adapted to the mentioned circumstances.