Artificial Heart: Build a Better Heart

In some cases, heart disease may be so severe that the patient can not stand waiting for a donor heart. Medical scientists have developed electronic devices such as defibrillators, pacemakers and artificial heart models that can keep patients alive until the heart becomes available.

One of the most famous is the "Jarvik-7" artificial heart, named after its designer Robert K. Jarvik, an American doctor. Designed to function like a natural heart, Jarvik-7 has two pumps (such as the ventricles), each with a disk-shaped mechanism that pushes blood from the valve inlet to the outlet valve.

The action of the artificial heart is fully similar to the action of the natural heart. There is, however, one major difference: the heart muscle of living nature, while the artificial heart is plastic, aluminum, and Dacron polyester. As a result, artificial heart requires some external source of "life." An external power system to energize and organize the pump through a system of compressed air hoses that enter the heart through the chest. Since the system is complicated and open to infection, the use of artificial heart intended to be temporary.

The Jarvik-7 was first used in the early 1980s. However, previous artificial hearts dates back to the mid-1950s. In 1957, a team of scientists, led by Willem Kolff, a Dutch-born physician, they are tested in animal models to identify the problem. In 1969, a team led by Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute successfully kept a human patient alive for more than sixty hours with their model. During the following years, the idea of ​​a permanent, not temporary, implantation began to take hold.

In 1982, a team led by William DeVries of the University of Utah embed the Jarvik-7 into patient Barney Clark who called. For various medical reasons, transplantation surgery is not an option for Clark. Therefore, it is a prime candidate for a permanent artificial heart. He survived with the Jarvik-7 for 112 days.

Since then, the development of improved artificial heart continue. One possibility is the heart that electrical power from a small wearable batteries that do not require a break in the skin. Maybe, someday, the artificial heart will be a choice, realistic permanent survival.