An artificial heart can save your life. But it can also change in a surprising way

This week, The doctors announced That the Australian man with severe heart failure left the hospital with an artificial heart, which kept him alive until he could receive the heart of the donor.

The patient, a man from Recent South Wales at the age of 40, was not the first person in the world who received this kind of artificial heart. However, he is He said he was . First with one to be discharged from the hospital Wait for a heart transplant that he had.

I am a philosopher and bioethics. AND I graduated from my doctorate In artificial hearts – especially when these implants can change the lives of people in a deep way.

Here’s what patients and their families must consider.

What is an artificial heart?

Artificial hearts began to be developed in the 1960s, sponsored by the United States and financed in a similar way to space and military programs.

In 1982 a man named Barney Clark He received the total artificial heart of Jarvik-7. The doctors removed his unsuccessful biological heart and replaced it with a plastic and metal device to circulate blood to the lungs and around the body. He lived 112 days before his death due to the failure of many organs. He never left the hospital.

In the 1980s and 1990s, medical equipment companies began to develop alternatives to total artificial hearts. These partial artificial hearts, called chamber assistance devices, facilitate the biological heart, supplementing or replacing one of two pumping cells.

They are simpler and versatile than complete artificial hearts and can be used at earlier stages of heart failure.

Not all artificial hearts generate pulse.

Artificial hearts with a pulse generally imitate the biological heart. They pump blood in the same way as the heart beats, filling with blood and squeezing to circulate blood in waves or impulses.

But some devices constantly push blood around the body instead of pulsating. Thus, thanks to these devices with continuous flows, neither the patient nor their health team can impulse.

In the USA in 2014-2024Almost 30,000 patients received aid devices with a continuous flow. Over 310 artificial hearts were implanted at the same time.

Total artificial hearts commercially available Today they are licensed only as bridging therapies – to keep people alive as long as the donor’s heart becomes available – not constant implants.

How about the device this week?

Device in messages – Bivacor total artificial heart -The was developed by the US-Australian cooperation. This device is pioneering, mainly because it is the first device of continuous flow designed to replace the whole heart. Designers also strive for the first total artificial heart as a constant transplant (known as target therapy).

Reliable, sturdy and responsive total artificial heart is, in words Paul Jansz, a surgeon who implanted the “Saint Grail” device.

So far, Bivacor’s clinical success gives us a reason for optimists as to an alternative to uncommon donor hearts for responding to sedate heart failure.

Transplants can change life

However, patients not only resume their venerable life when they leave a hospital with an artificial heart.

While the pumping component is in the chest, they are also external components for management and monitoring. The stout tube perforates the stomach and connects to the external unit of the controller and the power supply, which the patient carries in the bag. Controllers must be strictly monitored and the batteries must be regularly charged.

My studies have shown that even a completely sheltered and reliable total artificial heart can transform the lives of patients into at least three main areas.

1. Is this part of me? Do I trust it?

Patients must Trust, tolerate and receive sensory feedback on the operation of the device To feel like some of them. In the case of an artificial heart, this may mean that the device is responding to exercises and body needs.

But artificial hearts are hard to meet these criteria, especially for devices that do not generate pulse.

Patients may also wonder if their heart is in their body or in the controller unit. They may wonder if they have a heart at all, especially if they can’t feel pulse.

2. Mighty sound signals and alarms

The artificial heart also changes the way patients live and live Navigate the world.

Interruption from loud device alarms distract patients from normal activities. And patients must switch between main power and batteries when they Wake up at night and you have to visit the toilet.

3. Dicing time

Our hearts can be ours natural metronomydetermination time. So removing someone’s heart rhythm can confuse their sense of time.

The need for periodic charging of batteries may also transform patients’ days.

Waiting for the heart of a transplant or the latest software update can change patients’ perspectives to how months and years feel.

We must give patients the whole photo

Artificial hearts are amazing devices with a great promise. But patients and families also deserve to find out how these extraordinary treatments can change what they think about themselves and in the world.

They must know this before they register over them. Artificial hearts not only save lives – they also change it.