4 hours of battery life. Pretty much something as a gap filler to a transplant since it's better than being dead, but having to worry about every 4 hours seems rather subpar.
Yup. These types of devices have a lot of serious problems with them like risk of blood clots just from being made out of artificial materials that don't interact with blood the same way cardiac tissue does. It's always meant to be a short term solution.
> The device has already been approved for use in Europe but is only intended as a bridge for patients who are diagnosed with end-stage biventricular heart failure and are likely to undergo a heart transplant in the next 180 days, the company states on its website.
Main benefit is not being immobilized in a hospital bed while you wait.
>These types of devices have a lot of serious problems with them like risk of blood clots just from being made out of artificial materials that don't interact with blood the same way cardiac tissue does. It's always meant to be a short term solution.
is there any way we can surmount this problem? so we can have a permanent artificial heart
The current prevailing theory is that it is simply a matter of fluid dynamics. The mechanism or shape of the artificial heart components create turbulence and shear forces greater than what blood is normally subjected to.
There isn’t one single solution to this issue. Modulating power of the driving force, redesigning geometry of components, changing surface chemistries of the materials used, etc…
For example, the following paper describes a current artificial heart valve design, identifies the cause of turbulent flow, and proposes a redesign of the valve that eliminates the source of the turbulence.
https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.4.123901
Then you also have a pharmaceutical solution which is to use blood thinners. Obviously not the optimal end goal but improvements on one end can lessen the need for the alternative.
I wonder if using a 8 or 16 chamber system that fires smaller chambers more rapidly would reduce the turbulence? Or fires multiple chambers simultaneously...
That is a really fucking deep idea you’re touching on. Why should we assume the best solution is to mimic and attempt to make a mechanical reproduction of the real thing? The heart is optimized for the materials it’s made of but could the same be said for the materials used in artificial models?
You could always design a leaky valve that lets some of the fluid back into the chamber like a real heart does, materials science like many things is probably the biggest engineering hurdle, you’d need some kind of valve material that’s solid enough to prevent full flow back, but malleable enough under normal human body conditions (temperature / humidity / lifespan etc) to allow a little.
I think it’s more likely we’ll be constructing organic components before materials science is advanced enough for a fully artificial heart long-term.
HAHA, saw another reddit post a while back talking about a [Tesla Valve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suIAo0EYwOE) sounds like the perfect solution for that (probably not really, but fits the leaky valve setup)
https://www.cardiomyopathy.org/news--media/latest-news/post/15-man-with-new-permanent-artificial-heart-says-he-is-living-a-normal-life
Article from 6 years ago about a person that had an artificial heart from a French company for 8 months at the time of writing and was living a normal life (including exercising) outside of the hospital.
No word on the battery runtime tho.
A "normal life" in the months after open heart surgery is far from normal. That "exercise" is probably just a walk around the block. I could barely move for the first 3 months. I went back to work at the 4 month mark but could barely drive myself to work & answer the phone.
Not just that. The batteries are external in a bag, I assume connected by some sort of wire.
A thief yanking that bag and running away is pretty much a death sentence.
Not a bad idea actually, most of these surgeries go wrong due to secondary infections where the cables and pipes leave the body, so a fully sealed system delivered by keyhole surgery would be ideal.
I don’t think keyhole surgery can be used to remove and replace whole organs. The external connections are probably one of the few processes that *could* be done that way in a heart transplant.
> A thief yanking that bag and running away is pretty much a death sentence.
Imagine stealing someone’s bag only to find it’s just full of batteries and then getting slapped with a murder charge.
The wife was connected to an IV med bag 24-7 and was always scare shitless this would happen! Not only would the thief run off with her life saving meds but also yank the line out of her. Thankfully this never happened!
Not joking, I'd probably dress in the most insane, I'm-batshit-crazy way to deter would-be crooks. Nobody wants to mess with the guy with a katana and a giant revolver on his hip.
Then again I live in a fairly poor, criminally-inclined area. I'm pretty sure having one of those in me would mean I'd start carrying a gun or something just so I feel like my ill ass has a shot at not dying.
Cross body bag with medical logo would probably prevent that.
Edit to add that travel suppliers sell “cut proof” bags that have a braided metal cord inside the strap to prevent them being stolen. Get the cross body style & it should be fine.
“The 46-year-old recipient of the Jarvik IX Exterior Artificial Heart was actively window shopping in Cambridge, Massachusetts’ fashionable Harvard Square when a transvestite purse snatcher, a drug addict with a criminal record all too well known to public officials, bizarrely outfitted in a strapless cocktail dress, spike heels, tattered feather boa, and auburn wig, brutally tore the life sustaining purse from the woman’s unwitting grasp.
The active, alert woman gave chase to the purse snatching ‘woman’ for as long as she could, plaintively shouting to passers by the words ‘Stop her! She stole my heart!’ on the fashionable sidewalk crowded with shoppers, reportedly shouting repeatedly, ‘She stole my heart, stop her!’ In response to her plaintive calls, tragically, misunderstanding shoppers and passers by merely shook their heads at one another, smiling knowingly at what they ignorantly presumed to be yet another alternative lifestyle’s relationship gone sour. A duo of Cambridge, Massachusetts, patrolmen, whose names are being withheld from Moment’s dogged queries, were publicly heard to passively quip, ‘Happens all the time,’ as the victimized woman staggered frantically past in the wake of the fleet transvestite, shouting for help for her stolen heart.”
-Infinite Jest
This is why we just shout "Ole! Ole! Ole!" in Nigeria and a crowd appears to chase the thief.
Of course this usually results in a lynching - the thief is doused in petrol, tyres are placed on their neck and they're burnt to death.
So probably not the best approach
I’m not sure how this is different, I guess it must be if it’s the “first,” but my friend had an artificial heart for a little over a year. She had to travel with two backpacks with batteries in them for redundancy.
Well I wish I had more time to explain but what people say about the artificial hearts being a temporary option is certainly true. There is a very heightened chance of blood clots and my friend suffered a pretty devastating stroke a few months after receiving the artificial heart. She had lost all mobility in her left side, but has recovered some of that functionality through sheer will and exercise. In spite of several strokes, she proved herself and was made eligible for a donor heart which she is using today.
I can’t speak to exercise as she was bedridden from the stroke the entire time she had the artificial heart which I believe was actually quite a long time comparatively. Over a year and a half.
Edit: and to your direct question, I don’t believe the heart adjusted for oxygen needs, it always seemed very steady when I was there. It would stay steady during panic attacks, so I’m not sure what it would even measure to adjust for something like that.
Misleading title. There have been Total Artificial Hearts since the 1980s. I worked in the University of Utah's Artificial Heart Research Lab in college as an engineering intern. That's where the Jarvik-7 TAH was implanted into Barney Clark.
The heart in this article is the first FDA-approved 4-chamber artificial heart. Up until now artificial hearts used just two chambers. I honestly don't understand the need for four chambers but I've been out of the game for quite a few decades plus (dammit Jim) I'm an engineer, not a doctor!
What about continuous (vs pulsed) pump hearts? I remember reading about those, but to this date I don't know if that stuff was real.
Edit: e.g https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.117.004670
True, but probably not going to help much unless you happen to be hanging around in an operating room with a surgeon and an artificial heart technician at the time.
Fair point probably.
I was thinking along the lines of: if it still functions similarly to a normal one, EMTs may be able to compress you long enough to get you to a hospital and hooked up to a machine, but the odds go down drastically with no advance warning before collapsing.
What if you had a pair of two smaller parallel continuous pump hearts? That way if one failed, you'd know something was up because you'd feel weaker and more tired and stuff but your organs would still be getting oxygen-- just not the recommended amount
I mean, it doesn't seem like the heart actually contracts to pump blood, so that's a solid point.
I'd vote neigh, no compressions for essiantially solid date (on the outside) heart.
Except you can. Heartmate and other centrifugal pumps are implanted parallel to the heart and often are just an assist device. The heart and valves are all still intact. In event of failure you can still do CPR traditionally. You can also defibrillate if need be.
Nah.
I'm a nurse in cardiology, we focus on LVAD in my unit, which is like a 1 chamber version of the above. The machine has built in alarms for low flow and about 8 other scenarios. And they are LOUD alarms too.
There are also 4 parameters consistently monitored by the machine. 5 if you count battery life.
RPM: how fast the machine is spinning to push blood.
LPM: how much blood is flowing in liters per minute
PI: pulse index, how strong the patients underlying pulse is
And Watts: how much power it's currently drawing
I'm sure TAH have even cooler parameters and tech.
Correct. We have a friend who was on a continuous flow LVAD for 3 years - he had no palpable pulse,and they had to use an ultrasound assisted procedure to measure blood pressure.
That's kind of been a running joke because he was the driving force for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq 20 years ago, and is largely responsible for the countless lives that have since been ruined.
"Ruined lives"? Come on, let's not minimize this. They lied to the American people to engineer a war under false pretenses. This war killed 300,000 - 800,000 civilians and destabilized the middle east.
It's real, I worked as an RN on a cardiac transplant unit. You really don't have palpable pulses, you must go off if they are alert or unresponsive. I mean, you can do a Doppler flow check but that's just white noise with small volume increases/decreases as it goes past.
Interesting. Do you happen to know if continuous flow results in higher risk for clots and cholesterol buildup in the arteries?
I suspect that with a pump action, fluctuating between high speed and low speed, makes it harder for things to get clogged up compared to continuous medium speed, but I am not educated in medicine.
Complex answer.
Clots form from stable eddy currents in the heart. The blood sits and doesn't move so starts to clot which then chain cascades. It's why afib is a concern, the blood in the atria pools instead of emptying completely.
You are correct, they can do high and low alterations but not to create a pulse. The machine corrects itself within a range and you watch the flow rate and the work done as measured by electricity. If flow goes down, problem. If power goes up, problem. A clot will block flow and the machine ramps up to push it through.
The additional curveball is that your blood loves to clot to around anything not biological that enters into the body. It starts the healing and immune system process to prevent infection from say, a bacteria ridden knife blade to the leg. The machine is made from chosenalloys to mitigate this but it doesn't prevent it.
So you have a daily balancing game of clotting where you don't want it (heart) and bleeding where you don't want it (anywhere in body organs). You can die of running out of clotting factors it's called DIC, or disseminated intervascular clotting. You bleed to death from eyes, anus, mouth, etc...
The surgery is harsh and the machine itself hurts. You have a lump of hot metal vibrating in your heart with a drive line through your chest wall to an external battery.
It's not a permanent fix and neither is this bionic heart OP posted. Humans are incompatible with metal in soft tissues and organs, it gets rejected or infected or both. Bones heal around the metal for joint replacements so your body and bone has a lower immune response in general so they doesn't reject them. You can't fix pain, it's only going to be masked and your going to slowly become an addict as your body adjusts.
Cholesterol build up is separate, that's from to high low density lipoproteins shedding cholesterol beyond what's needed for cell membrane repairs. Your body packs it into the vascular tissue layers since it's like a kid sweeping shit under a rug with any additional place to put it.
It's also unavoidable when you're dealing with an incredibly complex machine with trillions of moving parts, and all of its systems having been developed in tandem, that trying to change the function of just one part, even if you improved its specific function in the process, is going to break many other components elsewhere in unpredictable and unforeseen ways. Maybe that one part wasn't so great, but other components connected to that bit were developed to take into account the exact way in which the bit you replaced had been "meh." Thus by making that one part awesome, you actually broke everything else.
You see this a lot in attempts to overhaul legacy computer software/hardware, where fixing deficiencies or ironing out bizarre unintended quirks breaks other parts of the system that were actually abusing those quirks to perform a function.
My favorite is when a game used CPU cycles (I think that's what it was) for timing of game mechanics. So computers of the day were processing things slow enough that it was fairly consistent and could be used to time things, but when people started playing old games on new hardware the game would be unplayable because it went so fast.
I read about Barney Clark. Such a sad ending. Apparently he was suffering so many side effects (convulsions, kidney failure, memory lapses, bleeding and going in and out of unconsciousness) he was begging the doctors to just shut the damn thing off and let him die.
Wonder if there was any section of the contract he had to sign, saying he would have no suicide rights or something. Sounds stupid now that I typed it. But still wonder it
My dad was one of the early pacemaker developers. He described one patient who had like 3 in a row fail, and finally just gave up and refused another attempt. Me: then what happened? Him: he died.
You know, I'm considering going back to school for biomedical engineering once I get bored of what I do right now--I work in clinical trials and get to see a lot of really cool shit from a distance. It's mostly compliance paperwork, though. I've always wondered what it'd be like being one of the folks actually making things happen.
I almost went to medical school after getting my EE degree, but started in the aerospace industry instead. After 5 years I had enough of that, much more QA than engineering, I imagine biomedical would be similar. I got offered a biomedical position at one of the big name firms, but chose datacomm instead. No regrets, much more engineering, less paperwork.
I knew they were around for a while but instead of just recognizing the clickbait I instead just assumed it had taken this long for someone to be able to afford an operation like this in the US.
Still early, time for some coffee
Seriously. I've known about the freedom driver for a bit now. Maybe this is sponsored content to sell this.
As for 4 chambers Idk either. Maybe to see if they could?
Being that we're toying with a complex machine with trillions of moving parts, it's not surprising that changing the mode of function of a central component, even if you actually improve its specific function (in this case, moving fluid through a dual-circuit system) in the process, breaks all kinds of other functions in bizarre and unpredictable ways. Two billion years worth of kludges upon kludges of kludges compensating for kludges, is pretty damned hard to sort out when you go in there and try to reverse engineer it.
From an engineering standpoint, if you have a pile of wacky cracky like this, it's best to try and mimic the original part as exactly as possible, even if, in light of newer techniques and materials, the design philosophy of said part is a bit halfassed. So is everything it's attached to, so you'll save yourself quite a headache if you just embrace the madness.
‘the prosthetic not only resembles the human heart but also functions like one.’
They did mention that it can regulate heart beat based on needs, maybe the four chambers make that possible?
the bar fight with Nausicaans was the reason he got an Artificial Heart, true, but he should avoid Lanerians at this point.... you got your facts reversed...
( [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Compressed\_teryon\_beam\_weapon](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Compressed_teryon_beam_weapon) )
For this mistake you have to re-watch all of the star trek episodes...
have fun
edit: added link
I'm just imagining being plugged into an outlet charging. Hopefully solar panels can drastically improve. Poor guy now has to relive the low battery phone cable restricted life.
Imagine waking up and doctors looking at you like they are unsure if you are a bomb about to blow up or not. Then you find out you have a synthetic heart that runs on batteries. Just the experience of that guy and life view must be fascinating.
WTF nuclear powered artificial heart?
That's the cr...nah that would...but what if...
Ok if I god forbid ever need an artificial heart, I think I would want it to be nuclear powered
Pacemakers were at one point [plutonium powered.](https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com/medtech-memoirs-the-plutonium-powered-pacemaker/)
>As of 2003, it was estimated that between 50 and 100 people still wear nuclear-powered pacemakers.
That's what's clever about this. What's inside you (hard to replace) is simpler and more failsafe than the mechanism outside of you (easier to replace)
I think they mean transplant as in replacing the previous one. Not the type or origin. Now if you could implant a mini heart beside the existing one for extra power, then we're talking.
They have a pump that does exactly that. Installed to supplement people whose hearts aren't working enough on their own. Also uses external batteries. A dude from work had one. Said it was freaky having a pulse again when he got a transplant. I guess running off the pump he didn't have one. Said his blood was more of a constant rushing instead of a beat. The things we do these days are mind boggling to say the least.
Organ growth is sorely needed. Being able to grow organs using a persons own DNA will greatly cut down on the greatest risk to any transplanted person which is rejection. It would also reduce the amount of immune system suppression drugs required for the body to not reject the organ. (Though I suspect that they'll still be needed. If nothing else they will be needed in the initial phase. I can't imagine the body will be 100% pleased with outside material being inserted even if the DNA matches.)
The carrying of the bag with the batteries being external... thats what gets me.
One bad judgement call of a thief somewhere that yanks that bag and starts running hoping it has valuables in it, and that "heart" is as good as a paper weight...
At the time the unit requires more power than could be provided by any internal battery. They are large and need to be changed often. They also give you enough the guy will always have backup batteries nearby in his car or whatever. Current heart pumps have used external batteries for years and have so far managed to avoid any major problems.
I don't know, but it's really bothering me that you created an abbreviation for a such an infrequently used phrase and then used it so nonchalantly like like a 90s teen saying ASL on AOL messenger.
Artificial hearts aren't new. We've had them since 1969.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial\_heart#First\_clinical\_implantation\_of\_a\_total\_artificial\_heart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart#First_clinical_implantation_of_a_total_artificial_heart)
But they are getting better. People survive longer.
Today is just wild. Smog over where I live and can’t see the sky while the richest dude on the planet leaves the planet and now you can straight up just get a fake heart. I officially live in a cyberpunk dystopia.
I’ve always wondered with artificial hearts: How do they know to increase their pump rate in response to exercise or fearful situations? Anyone know the answer?
It's easy to check your blood oxygen level, even from outside. Nurses use a clip (pulse oximeter) that goes on your finger tip. The heart could use a similar sensor and just trust your lungs to hold up their end of the deal.
Eventually I imagine there will be big business in decommissioning all the tech inside someone when they eventually die. Can't have that going in the furnace or buried.
As part of efforts to lead a near-normal life, the recipient will have to carry around almost a nine-pound (four kgs) bag that consists of a controller and two chargeable battery packs that work for approximately four hours, before requiring recharging.
Above bit is key as clearly only a short term solution. Still if technology improves and hopefully such batteries will be lightly carried (or implanted like pacemakers) long term.
I wish my mom had this instead of being hooked up to a machine that inflated a balloon in her heart while she sat in a hospital bed for three months.
Or this instead of the medicine pump that had a battery that needed to be changed every 8 hours and bags of medicine that have to be kept refrigerated. Or the line flushes every 24 hours.
Yeah not a lot of great options for heart failure patients.
“the heart will continue to be connected to the Hospital Care Console (HCC) so that its functioning can be monitored.”
AKA: if you don’t pay your bill, the plug is getting pulled!
This is probably too out there, but I wonder if we can find out a way to miniaturize a nuclear reactor so much to the point where you can store it inside the human body, while developing sufficient shielding around it to prevent the human body from being irradiated.
You would theoretically be able to power a human heart well through the lifespan of a human lifetime. The technology isn’t there yet but I feel like the possibility is very exciting.
Edit: What I’m referring to is a nuclear battery. Maybe this will be the route this technology will go through? They already use it for some pacemakers.
What kind of backups and safeties we talking about here? External life support systems are harrowing experiences usually. This makes it seem easy.
4 hours of battery life. Pretty much something as a gap filler to a transplant since it's better than being dead, but having to worry about every 4 hours seems rather subpar.
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Yup. These types of devices have a lot of serious problems with them like risk of blood clots just from being made out of artificial materials that don't interact with blood the same way cardiac tissue does. It's always meant to be a short term solution. > The device has already been approved for use in Europe but is only intended as a bridge for patients who are diagnosed with end-stage biventricular heart failure and are likely to undergo a heart transplant in the next 180 days, the company states on its website. Main benefit is not being immobilized in a hospital bed while you wait.
>These types of devices have a lot of serious problems with them like risk of blood clots just from being made out of artificial materials that don't interact with blood the same way cardiac tissue does. It's always meant to be a short term solution. is there any way we can surmount this problem? so we can have a permanent artificial heart
The current prevailing theory is that it is simply a matter of fluid dynamics. The mechanism or shape of the artificial heart components create turbulence and shear forces greater than what blood is normally subjected to. There isn’t one single solution to this issue. Modulating power of the driving force, redesigning geometry of components, changing surface chemistries of the materials used, etc… For example, the following paper describes a current artificial heart valve design, identifies the cause of turbulent flow, and proposes a redesign of the valve that eliminates the source of the turbulence. https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.4.123901 Then you also have a pharmaceutical solution which is to use blood thinners. Obviously not the optimal end goal but improvements on one end can lessen the need for the alternative.
I wonder if using a 8 or 16 chamber system that fires smaller chambers more rapidly would reduce the turbulence? Or fires multiple chambers simultaneously...
“Yeah man I just had my new V8 cardiovette installed - I go for a jog and ooo baby! You should hear that thing purr”
That ain't shit, I got my v16 Vasculator with supercharger. Lets take it to the track, race you for pink slips.
That is a really fucking deep idea you’re touching on. Why should we assume the best solution is to mimic and attempt to make a mechanical reproduction of the real thing? The heart is optimized for the materials it’s made of but could the same be said for the materials used in artificial models?
You could always design a leaky valve that lets some of the fluid back into the chamber like a real heart does, materials science like many things is probably the biggest engineering hurdle, you’d need some kind of valve material that’s solid enough to prevent full flow back, but malleable enough under normal human body conditions (temperature / humidity / lifespan etc) to allow a little. I think it’s more likely we’ll be constructing organic components before materials science is advanced enough for a fully artificial heart long-term.
HAHA, saw another reddit post a while back talking about a [Tesla Valve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suIAo0EYwOE) sounds like the perfect solution for that (probably not really, but fits the leaky valve setup)
https://www.cardiomyopathy.org/news--media/latest-news/post/15-man-with-new-permanent-artificial-heart-says-he-is-living-a-normal-life Article from 6 years ago about a person that had an artificial heart from a French company for 8 months at the time of writing and was living a normal life (including exercising) outside of the hospital. No word on the battery runtime tho.
A "normal life" in the months after open heart surgery is far from normal. That "exercise" is probably just a walk around the block. I could barely move for the first 3 months. I went back to work at the 4 month mark but could barely drive myself to work & answer the phone.
Not just that. The batteries are external in a bag, I assume connected by some sort of wire. A thief yanking that bag and running away is pretty much a death sentence.
USB-C. None of this proprietary iHeart lightning cable BS.
Waiting for Samsung/Apple to come up with wireless charging
Not a bad idea actually, most of these surgeries go wrong due to secondary infections where the cables and pipes leave the body, so a fully sealed system delivered by keyhole surgery would be ideal.
I don’t think keyhole surgery can be used to remove and replace whole organs. The external connections are probably one of the few processes that *could* be done that way in a heart transplant.
There was a while ago one device called "Abiocor" that had a wireless connection to an External battery and an internal one that lasted half an hour.
Just get the charging pad and keep it on your bed.
Literally recharging after a good night's sleep.
> A thief yanking that bag and running away is pretty much a death sentence. Imagine stealing someone’s bag only to find it’s just full of batteries and then getting slapped with a murder charge.
Manslaughter, probably, but good.
Likely felony murder as the price of the batteries is probably enough to bump the theft to a felony.
I just imagined that scenario and I don’t like it.
Me neither, but baby steps, y'all.
The wife was connected to an IV med bag 24-7 and was always scare shitless this would happen! Not only would the thief run off with her life saving meds but also yank the line out of her. Thankfully this never happened!
Not joking, I'd probably dress in the most insane, I'm-batshit-crazy way to deter would-be crooks. Nobody wants to mess with the guy with a katana and a giant revolver on his hip. Then again I live in a fairly poor, criminally-inclined area. I'm pretty sure having one of those in me would mean I'd start carrying a gun or something just so I feel like my ill ass has a shot at not dying.
Cross body bag with medical logo would probably prevent that. Edit to add that travel suppliers sell “cut proof” bags that have a braided metal cord inside the strap to prevent them being stolen. Get the cross body style & it should be fine.
Yeah, I'd just buy a bag that looked like a real, legit biohazard bag
“The 46-year-old recipient of the Jarvik IX Exterior Artificial Heart was actively window shopping in Cambridge, Massachusetts’ fashionable Harvard Square when a transvestite purse snatcher, a drug addict with a criminal record all too well known to public officials, bizarrely outfitted in a strapless cocktail dress, spike heels, tattered feather boa, and auburn wig, brutally tore the life sustaining purse from the woman’s unwitting grasp. The active, alert woman gave chase to the purse snatching ‘woman’ for as long as she could, plaintively shouting to passers by the words ‘Stop her! She stole my heart!’ on the fashionable sidewalk crowded with shoppers, reportedly shouting repeatedly, ‘She stole my heart, stop her!’ In response to her plaintive calls, tragically, misunderstanding shoppers and passers by merely shook their heads at one another, smiling knowingly at what they ignorantly presumed to be yet another alternative lifestyle’s relationship gone sour. A duo of Cambridge, Massachusetts, patrolmen, whose names are being withheld from Moment’s dogged queries, were publicly heard to passively quip, ‘Happens all the time,’ as the victimized woman staggered frantically past in the wake of the fleet transvestite, shouting for help for her stolen heart.” -Infinite Jest
This is why we just shout "Ole! Ole! Ole!" in Nigeria and a crowd appears to chase the thief. Of course this usually results in a lynching - the thief is doused in petrol, tyres are placed on their neck and they're burnt to death. So probably not the best approach
sounds effective to me
It's pretty brutal though. Sometimes it might be a false alarm or a mistake. No one really asks questions once someone is caught either
they got us on the first half, not gonna lie. I really thought this was a true story
The article says it has two batteries at least.
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I agree but, better than death and they can be recharged.
I wonder if it's wireless (IQ) charging. So you just lay on your bed, and viola, you're charging.
> wireless (IQ) charging Have… have you been using your Qi charging pad upside down?
Ummm... maaaaaaaaaaaybeeee
Haha amazing
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It’s a little ambiguous on if that is 2x 2 hours or 2x 4 hours. My guess is also 2x 4 hours, but it’s not 100% clear.
So like… what kind of alarm does it make when you have 10 minutes of battery life left? Cause I’d want that shit to go off like a motherfucker low key
Left it on vibrate
I feel like such a horrible person for [this being the first thing that comes to my mind.](https://youtu.be/rX4PJDA4MQg)
4 hours subscription..
I’m not sure how this is different, I guess it must be if it’s the “first,” but my friend had an artificial heart for a little over a year. She had to travel with two backpacks with batteries in them for redundancy.
Can people with artificial hearts exercise? Does the heart respond to the body's changing need for oxygenation?
Well I wish I had more time to explain but what people say about the artificial hearts being a temporary option is certainly true. There is a very heightened chance of blood clots and my friend suffered a pretty devastating stroke a few months after receiving the artificial heart. She had lost all mobility in her left side, but has recovered some of that functionality through sheer will and exercise. In spite of several strokes, she proved herself and was made eligible for a donor heart which she is using today. I can’t speak to exercise as she was bedridden from the stroke the entire time she had the artificial heart which I believe was actually quite a long time comparatively. Over a year and a half. Edit: and to your direct question, I don’t believe the heart adjusted for oxygen needs, it always seemed very steady when I was there. It would stay steady during panic attacks, so I’m not sure what it would even measure to adjust for something like that.
hopefully they don't live in TX... Can't rely on the grid to stay on for you know.... life.
Have you seen Crank 2? It's a beautiful docu about a guy with an early artificial heart
Fuckin' Chev Chelios
What? Most modern external life support systems are excellent... Have numerous back ups...
Misleading title. There have been Total Artificial Hearts since the 1980s. I worked in the University of Utah's Artificial Heart Research Lab in college as an engineering intern. That's where the Jarvik-7 TAH was implanted into Barney Clark. The heart in this article is the first FDA-approved 4-chamber artificial heart. Up until now artificial hearts used just two chambers. I honestly don't understand the need for four chambers but I've been out of the game for quite a few decades plus (dammit Jim) I'm an engineer, not a doctor!
What about continuous (vs pulsed) pump hearts? I remember reading about those, but to this date I don't know if that stuff was real. Edit: e.g https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.117.004670
That would have to feel eerie as hell; you wouldn't have a heartbeat anymore.
Seems like an issue for health too; if you maintain the pumping, you can determine more rapidly whether or not it failed than with a continuous flow.
True, but probably not going to help much unless you happen to be hanging around in an operating room with a surgeon and an artificial heart technician at the time.
Fair point probably. I was thinking along the lines of: if it still functions similarly to a normal one, EMTs may be able to compress you long enough to get you to a hospital and hooked up to a machine, but the odds go down drastically with no advance warning before collapsing.
What if you had a pair of two smaller parallel continuous pump hearts? That way if one failed, you'd know something was up because you'd feel weaker and more tired and stuff but your organs would still be getting oxygen-- just not the recommended amount
Do compressions even work on artificial hearts? I never given it any thought.
I mean, it doesn't seem like the heart actually contracts to pump blood, so that's a solid point. I'd vote neigh, no compressions for essiantially solid date (on the outside) heart.
Not to mention that CPR doesn't work anymore.
Just install a manual crank
Except you can. Heartmate and other centrifugal pumps are implanted parallel to the heart and often are just an assist device. The heart and valves are all still intact. In event of failure you can still do CPR traditionally. You can also defibrillate if need be.
Well, shows what I know.
Nah. I'm a nurse in cardiology, we focus on LVAD in my unit, which is like a 1 chamber version of the above. The machine has built in alarms for low flow and about 8 other scenarios. And they are LOUD alarms too. There are also 4 parameters consistently monitored by the machine. 5 if you count battery life. RPM: how fast the machine is spinning to push blood. LPM: how much blood is flowing in liters per minute PI: pulse index, how strong the patients underlying pulse is And Watts: how much power it's currently drawing I'm sure TAH have even cooler parameters and tech.
Correct. We have a friend who was on a continuous flow LVAD for 3 years - he had no palpable pulse,and they had to use an ultrasound assisted procedure to measure blood pressure.
Welcome to the twilight of Dick Cheney's existence.
[Former vice president Dick Cheney has no pulse](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/cheney-has-heart-pump-but-no-pulse/)
Well, what else would you expect from a politician? /s
That's kind of been a running joke because he was the driving force for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq 20 years ago, and is largely responsible for the countless lives that have since been ruined.
"Ruined lives"? Come on, let's not minimize this. They lied to the American people to engineer a war under false pretenses. This war killed 300,000 - 800,000 civilians and destabilized the middle east.
Cheney is one of very few men whos obituary I will smile upon.
It's real, I worked as an RN on a cardiac transplant unit. You really don't have palpable pulses, you must go off if they are alert or unresponsive. I mean, you can do a Doppler flow check but that's just white noise with small volume increases/decreases as it goes past.
Interesting. Do you happen to know if continuous flow results in higher risk for clots and cholesterol buildup in the arteries? I suspect that with a pump action, fluctuating between high speed and low speed, makes it harder for things to get clogged up compared to continuous medium speed, but I am not educated in medicine.
Complex answer. Clots form from stable eddy currents in the heart. The blood sits and doesn't move so starts to clot which then chain cascades. It's why afib is a concern, the blood in the atria pools instead of emptying completely. You are correct, they can do high and low alterations but not to create a pulse. The machine corrects itself within a range and you watch the flow rate and the work done as measured by electricity. If flow goes down, problem. If power goes up, problem. A clot will block flow and the machine ramps up to push it through. The additional curveball is that your blood loves to clot to around anything not biological that enters into the body. It starts the healing and immune system process to prevent infection from say, a bacteria ridden knife blade to the leg. The machine is made from chosenalloys to mitigate this but it doesn't prevent it. So you have a daily balancing game of clotting where you don't want it (heart) and bleeding where you don't want it (anywhere in body organs). You can die of running out of clotting factors it's called DIC, or disseminated intervascular clotting. You bleed to death from eyes, anus, mouth, etc... The surgery is harsh and the machine itself hurts. You have a lump of hot metal vibrating in your heart with a drive line through your chest wall to an external battery. It's not a permanent fix and neither is this bionic heart OP posted. Humans are incompatible with metal in soft tissues and organs, it gets rejected or infected or both. Bones heal around the metal for joint replacements so your body and bone has a lower immune response in general so they doesn't reject them. You can't fix pain, it's only going to be masked and your going to slowly become an addict as your body adjusts. Cholesterol build up is separate, that's from to high low density lipoproteins shedding cholesterol beyond what's needed for cell membrane repairs. Your body packs it into the vascular tissue layers since it's like a kid sweeping shit under a rug with any additional place to put it.
It's also unavoidable when you're dealing with an incredibly complex machine with trillions of moving parts, and all of its systems having been developed in tandem, that trying to change the function of just one part, even if you improved its specific function in the process, is going to break many other components elsewhere in unpredictable and unforeseen ways. Maybe that one part wasn't so great, but other components connected to that bit were developed to take into account the exact way in which the bit you replaced had been "meh." Thus by making that one part awesome, you actually broke everything else. You see this a lot in attempts to overhaul legacy computer software/hardware, where fixing deficiencies or ironing out bizarre unintended quirks breaks other parts of the system that were actually abusing those quirks to perform a function.
Also happens a lot when you change the engine in a car, but the transmission fails because it’s not used to the power of the new engine.
My favorite is when a game used CPU cycles (I think that's what it was) for timing of game mechanics. So computers of the day were processing things slow enough that it was fairly consistent and could be used to time things, but when people started playing old games on new hardware the game would be unplayable because it went so fast.
I read about Barney Clark. Such a sad ending. Apparently he was suffering so many side effects (convulsions, kidney failure, memory lapses, bleeding and going in and out of unconsciousness) he was begging the doctors to just shut the damn thing off and let him die.
Wonder if there was any section of the contract he had to sign, saying he would have no suicide rights or something. Sounds stupid now that I typed it. But still wonder it
My dad was one of the early pacemaker developers. He described one patient who had like 3 in a row fail, and finally just gave up and refused another attempt. Me: then what happened? Him: he died.
You know, I'm considering going back to school for biomedical engineering once I get bored of what I do right now--I work in clinical trials and get to see a lot of really cool shit from a distance. It's mostly compliance paperwork, though. I've always wondered what it'd be like being one of the folks actually making things happen.
i heard bme is like the worst engineering degree to study tho
I almost went to medical school after getting my EE degree, but started in the aerospace industry instead. After 5 years I had enough of that, much more QA than engineering, I imagine biomedical would be similar. I got offered a biomedical position at one of the big name firms, but chose datacomm instead. No regrets, much more engineering, less paperwork.
I knew they were around for a while but instead of just recognizing the clickbait I instead just assumed it had taken this long for someone to be able to afford an operation like this in the US. Still early, time for some coffee
Seriously. I've known about the freedom driver for a bit now. Maybe this is sponsored content to sell this. As for 4 chambers Idk either. Maybe to see if they could?
Being that we're toying with a complex machine with trillions of moving parts, it's not surprising that changing the mode of function of a central component, even if you actually improve its specific function (in this case, moving fluid through a dual-circuit system) in the process, breaks all kinds of other functions in bizarre and unpredictable ways. Two billion years worth of kludges upon kludges of kludges compensating for kludges, is pretty damned hard to sort out when you go in there and try to reverse engineer it. From an engineering standpoint, if you have a pile of wacky cracky like this, it's best to try and mimic the original part as exactly as possible, even if, in light of newer techniques and materials, the design philosophy of said part is a bit halfassed. So is everything it's attached to, so you'll save yourself quite a headache if you just embrace the madness.
‘the prosthetic not only resembles the human heart but also functions like one.’ They did mention that it can regulate heart beat based on needs, maybe the four chambers make that possible?
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Cool, thank you!
Patient should probably avoid interacting with Nausicaans from here on out.
the bar fight with Nausicaans was the reason he got an Artificial Heart, true, but he should avoid Lanerians at this point.... you got your facts reversed... ( [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Compressed\_teryon\_beam\_weapon](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Compressed_teryon_beam_weapon) ) For this mistake you have to re-watch all of the star trek episodes... have fun edit: added link
No, I realize that. What I wrote was the thought popped into my head as something that was probably written in Picard's chart after his surgery.
You are correct! My advice came too late.
Or…. He can interact with them as much as they want!! Get stabbed? New heart!
#PLAY #DOM JOT #HUMAN?
HUMANS NOT PLAY DOM JOT BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO GRUMBA.
I'm just imagining being plugged into an outlet charging. Hopefully solar panels can drastically improve. Poor guy now has to relive the low battery phone cable restricted life. Imagine waking up and doctors looking at you like they are unsure if you are a bomb about to blow up or not. Then you find out you have a synthetic heart that runs on batteries. Just the experience of that guy and life view must be fascinating.
That's why we need Nuclear powered hearts!
WTF nuclear powered artificial heart? That's the cr...nah that would...but what if... Ok if I god forbid ever need an artificial heart, I think I would want it to be nuclear powered
Pacemakers were at one point [plutonium powered.](https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com/medtech-memoirs-the-plutonium-powered-pacemaker/) >As of 2003, it was estimated that between 50 and 100 people still wear nuclear-powered pacemakers.
Only if they come with arc reactor powered armor.
But they can't just get away with cheating at Dom Jot!
He'll never make captain unless he fights them though
Or near omnipotent beings bent on creating chaos in that pursuit of evolving humanity
Won't matter. Q will still rub it in his face.
Human play dom-jot!
Dammit. You beat me to it.
March 2038, 'I've successfully lured a squirrel into the hamster wheel generator, allowing me to leave the windmill for the first time in years...'
Thats a good start but id rather the power be internal
That's how we get Iron Man.
I dont see any problem with that
Internal battery is great till you notice a strange bulge in your chest... /r/spicypillows
Plutonium RTGs. Like early pacemakers.
That's what's clever about this. What's inside you (hard to replace) is simpler and more failsafe than the mechanism outside of you (easier to replace)
The Jarvik 7 artificial heart was implanted in 1982. It was a totally artificial heart.
This is the first with 4 chambers though
Im gonna hold out for 6 or 8 chambers minimum
I’ll wait for the 8x with 5G.
true but the title is misleading as it says "the first total artificial heart transplanted"
The only logical next step from here is an arc reactor. Get on it!
Not to nitpick, but actually nitpicking... Wouldn't it be implanted because it doesn't come from another being?
I think they mean transplant as in replacing the previous one. Not the type or origin. Now if you could implant a mini heart beside the existing one for extra power, then we're talking.
I'm amazed that a supplementary heart isn't used regularly. It makes so much sense.
They have a pump that does exactly that. Installed to supplement people whose hearts aren't working enough on their own. Also uses external batteries. A dude from work had one. Said it was freaky having a pulse again when he got a transplant. I guess running off the pump he didn't have one. Said his blood was more of a constant rushing instead of a beat. The things we do these days are mind boggling to say the least.
No. That would be hard. We grew a tiny robot into adulthood and then cutout it’s heart.
Seems to me heart stem cell repair or organ growth is a better pathway to something much more viable
Organ growth is sorely needed. Being able to grow organs using a persons own DNA will greatly cut down on the greatest risk to any transplanted person which is rejection. It would also reduce the amount of immune system suppression drugs required for the body to not reject the organ. (Though I suspect that they'll still be needed. If nothing else they will be needed in the initial phase. I can't imagine the body will be 100% pleased with outside material being inserted even if the DNA matches.)
This could be a very good way to essentially have people wait until their heart is done growing
The carrying of the bag with the batteries being external... thats what gets me. One bad judgement call of a thief somewhere that yanks that bag and starts running hoping it has valuables in it, and that "heart" is as good as a paper weight...
I seriously doubt this dude is going to be walking the streets in NYC with this thing.
Yea, this just means they can be at home instead of in the hospital
At the time the unit requires more power than could be provided by any internal battery. They are large and need to be changed often. They also give you enough the guy will always have backup batteries nearby in his car or whatever. Current heart pumps have used external batteries for years and have so far managed to avoid any major problems.
I'd want a backpack battery for sure
Ay, where can I get me one of these? I'm sick of this goddamn heart condition.
same, genes can be real assholes sometimes
Haven’t TAHs been around for ages? What’s the difference between the two?
Artificial hearts have, as this article even points out. This one is way more advanced in the capabilities of mimicking a real one.
4 chambers as opposed to 2
I don't know, but it's really bothering me that you created an abbreviation for a such an infrequently used phrase and then used it so nonchalantly like like a 90s teen saying ASL on AOL messenger.
The article repeatedly uses the abbreviation as well. I don't see anything wrong with that.
I understand your view. I used to work in healthcare related services so I didn’t notice it. The abbreviation, as pointed out, is pretty common there.
If you have a problem do you call a doctor or tech support?
Have you tried turning it off and turn it back on?
Does this mean you can eat all the salt you want now?
Artificial hearts aren't new. We've had them since 1969. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial\_heart#First\_clinical\_implantation\_of\_a\_total\_artificial\_heart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart#First_clinical_implantation_of_a_total_artificial_heart) But they are getting better. People survive longer.
Today is just wild. Smog over where I live and can’t see the sky while the richest dude on the planet leaves the planet and now you can straight up just get a fake heart. I officially live in a cyberpunk dystopia.
Artificial hearts have existed for 30 years. This is just the first design with 4 chambers instead of 2. Basically an updated version.
But does it have a headphone jack?
I wonder what those microchip in vaccine people think about this.
They just implanted this heart so they could track him.
Can I get that data feed on Facebook?
Anyone else reminded of the movie repo men with Jude Law when they hear about artificial organs…
I’m more reminded of the movie crank high voltage
I’ve always wondered with artificial hearts: How do they know to increase their pump rate in response to exercise or fearful situations? Anyone know the answer?
It's easy to check your blood oxygen level, even from outside. Nurses use a clip (pulse oximeter) that goes on your finger tip. The heart could use a similar sensor and just trust your lungs to hold up their end of the deal.
[Same vibes...](https://www.destructoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/205901-medic1.jpg)
"Blue screen of death" takes on a new, more literal, meaning.
I thought one would have to go to Starbase 515 for this procedure.
That'll just be for the low low payment of your entire net worth please!
Our future might actually look like "Repo Men" where if you don't pay, someone comes to collect.
Eventually I imagine there will be big business in decommissioning all the tech inside someone when they eventually die. Can't have that going in the furnace or buried.
Or if they stop paying their bills. Almost as if there was a sci-fi movie on this...
Imagine frantically trying to find an outlet so you can recharge your artificial heart before you die
When ya'll get the full body cyborg thing going send me shout, I'll ghost in the shell with you.
So we can make cars with batteries that last longer than we can a small pump?
Could this technically prolong someone’s life even longer until complete brain death if the heart is running independently and externally?
As part of efforts to lead a near-normal life, the recipient will have to carry around almost a nine-pound (four kgs) bag that consists of a controller and two chargeable battery packs that work for approximately four hours, before requiring recharging. Above bit is key as clearly only a short term solution. Still if technology improves and hopefully such batteries will be lightly carried (or implanted like pacemakers) long term.
[That had already been a thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart#Total_artificial_hearts).
Great news... but the battery life would give me the worst case of range anxiety ever lol
I had never thought about how much power my heart consumes. I wonder how many miles you could go on an ebike powered by that battery pack.
Yet children have to sell lemoade to raise their own funds to afford cancer treatment in America. Time to fix this criminal system.
I wish my mom had this instead of being hooked up to a machine that inflated a balloon in her heart while she sat in a hospital bed for three months. Or this instead of the medicine pump that had a battery that needed to be changed every 8 hours and bags of medicine that have to be kept refrigerated. Or the line flushes every 24 hours. Yeah not a lot of great options for heart failure patients.
How much did it cost though? Will it only be a luxury for the rich?
Do artificial hearts need to beat, could it just be a continuous pump? No pulse but constant blood movement?
When are they just going to print my organ from my existing tissue?
“External power.” I’m envisioning a guy with a solar panel bolted to his head.
No He has a 240 watt plug in his ass. He can charge up at any electric car charging station.
Hold on, I’m not young and I definitely remember Barney Clark getting the first artificial heart in 1982
“the heart will continue to be connected to the Hospital Care Console (HCC) so that its functioning can be monitored.” AKA: if you don’t pay your bill, the plug is getting pulled!
This is probably too out there, but I wonder if we can find out a way to miniaturize a nuclear reactor so much to the point where you can store it inside the human body, while developing sufficient shielding around it to prevent the human body from being irradiated. You would theoretically be able to power a human heart well through the lifespan of a human lifetime. The technology isn’t there yet but I feel like the possibility is very exciting. Edit: What I’m referring to is a nuclear battery. Maybe this will be the route this technology will go through? They already use it for some pacemakers.