10 ms·
25-year-old lived for more than a year without a heart
- andrewclunn 10y agoI wonder if it affected his mood at all. I mean is the heart pumping of anxiety or anger a symptom or part of a feedback loop?
- 0xdada 10y agoEven if it is, I assume everything that comes with knowing you don't have a heart is too much of a factor for this to be measured/evaluated.
- metaphor 10y agoWhat is the feedback loop that regulates the artificial heart's pump rate, assuming it exists at all?
- c-slice 10y agoThere isn't any. The vagus nerve helps regulate heart rate, but artificial hearts don't change their pump rate to internal factors.
- jamesblonde 10y agoNot true. The Carmat heart increases and decreases pulse rate in response to changed hormone (or some other biomarker) levels
- ars 10y agoIt's the body telling the heart "Pump more, we need extra oxygen". Not having a heart doesn't change his mood, his mood changes the heartbeat. That's why there were so surprised he could play sports - without that acceleration he might not have enough bloodflow for his activities. I wonder if it has a knob to manually adjust the flowrate. Or maybe since it's mechanical it's fine for it to run at max at all times? That might not be good for the rest of the vascular system though. If that's bad for the vascular system then an idea would be to measure O2 saturation in the toes, and adjust the flow if it gets low.
- ZeroGravitas 10y agoI would guess so because beta-blockers are also prescribed for anxiety as well as various heart conditions, and breaking the feedback loop is the intended effect. I'd imagine therefore that you'd be a bit less anxious as a result.
- darawk 10y agoThis is not new or particularly interesting. Dick Cheney had one of these for a long time. I knew someone who had one too. I'm not sure why this is being written about as if it's new.
- ErikAugust 10y agoThis guy also played basketball with this - and also, it is a external machine worn as a backpack! So it is new in big ways.
- digi_owl 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventricular_assist_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventricular_assist_device The above seems to be what Cheney was outfitted with. The syncardia system mentioned in the article appears to be a full heart replacement unit.
- maxerickson 10y agoIt's somewhat different. Cheney still had his heart inside his body. This device is a total replacement. http://www.syncardia.com/medical-professionals/tah-for-medical-professionals/itemid-1530.html http://www.syncardia.com/medical-professionals/tah-for-medic...
- rosser 10y agoCheney had an LVAD, not one of these.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mentos 10y agoSeparate thought, if you were to replace your lungs with a machine that oxygenated your blood, could you calmly sit without breathing? Is the anxiety/impulse to breathe do to a lack of oxygen?
- andrewchambers 10y agoIt's from buildup of co2. You would need to scrub that.
- JoshTriplett 10y agoIn particular, in an environment that has insufficient oxygen in the air but that doesn't have carbon dioxide, you don't feel a desperate need to breathe; you just pass out and die.
- saidajigumi 10y agoThis can and does kill people, in a variety of low oxygen situations. E.g. labs with liquid nitrogen freezers are mostly now fitted with O2 alarms to warn occupants about a dangerous and undetectable low O2 situation. Since you're still able to expel CO2, you literally won't feel anything wrong until you just collapse and quietly asphyxiate. Movies get this wrong all the time, and it bugs the heck out of my biotech friends with safety training with aforementioned labs.
- Raticide 10y agoBut at least it's a totally painless and stress free way to die.
- gozur88 10y agoYour body will prompt you to breath when either CO2 levels are too high or O2 levels are too low. In your example the subject is still breathing even if he isn't getting O2. One problem ER docs see periodically is the CO2 "sensor" can become broken in patients with chronically high blood CO2 levels, i.e. people with certain types of COPD. They only breath when their blood O2 levels are low, and if you give them oxygen they just stop breathing.
- kerryfalk 10y agoAdmittedly I didn't read the whole story, the click-bait title got me. I had a girlfriend with a similar device attached to her (an LVAD). At first it was a little unnerving seeing her unplug the batteries that were keeping her alive and charge them every night. It quickly became normal for me. Life with it seemed relatively normal except she had to have a purse with her at all times (it carried the batteries). The interesting part was when she received a transplant and went cordless. After being attached to it for two years and not having a heartbeat the sound of her heat beating kept her up at night for a couple of weeks. I hadn't even considered the beating of a heart to be relevant to our daily lives until she had mentioned it once she heard hers beating again (an LVAD is just a constant velocity pump. The blood is always flowing). Not sure how much it really adds to the conversation other than an interesting anecdote.
- cushychicken 10y agoWow, I had no idea you have no pulse when you have an LVAD. That's really neat. Do you have any idea if there have ever been studies on the effect of constant flow vs peristaltic flow on the circulatory system? I wonder if the constant flow creates or solves any issues.
- peff 10y agoThat continuous flow is new(-ish). My father had an LVAD in 2002, and it was the older type that actually pumps rhythmically, so that was his pulse. At the time continuous-flow models were in research, and I do remember there were concerns with thrombosis (basically, the shifting force of the pulse helps break up clots). I don't know the current state of the art, but there are definitely studies (the keyword is "pulsatile"). For example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250555/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250555/ For comparison, here's a picture of some LVADs. The one I've seen in person (after it had been taken back out!) is the one on the far left. Flow issues aside, I can imagine the smaller ones are easier on the patient in general, just from the perspective of surgery trauma. http://reliantheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/VAD_Size_Comparison.jpg http://reliantheart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/VAD_Size_...
- Ma8ee 10y agoThat surprises me. I thought that we had ample proof that Cheney lacked a heart.
- chillacy 10y agoThe pump is shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WUHSJrhm4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WUHSJrhm4 It's surprisingly loud
- fokinsean 10y agoGeez I wonder if it makes that noise the whole time you have it or if it goes through cycles. That would drive me crazy, but hey you get to live.
- jamesblonde 10y agoCarmat have a competing device that's been implanted in 5 patients so far. It is much more technically advanced, with Alan Carpentier designing, I think, to prevent blood clots. However, it's. A pump based device Nd the jury is still out on how long pump based devices can last. They expect the xarmat heart to last 5 years.
- ekianjo 10y agoCarmat gets a lot of bad press when each patient with their pump dies, even though the press does not realise patients would be long dead without them.
- jamesblonde 10y agoI don't know if the press are that important tbh. They have now progressed to clinical trials. If they are successful they will make and sell millions of them. 23andme showed that press isn't that important in medicine - pleasing the FDA is the name of the game.
- jamesblonde 10y agoThe Bivacor is another interesting device based on pumpless technology. Good read this http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/04/health/permanent-artificial-heart/ http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/04/health/permanent-artificia...
- sitic 10y agoThere is a great NYT documentary on artificial hearts and the history behind it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xn5u-LzsW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xn5u-LzsW8 It starts with the Jarvik-7 artifical heart from the 1980s (first seen as a success, then as a failure) and then moves on to today's temporary and permanent artifical hearts.
- bd 10y agoReally interesting documentary. Thanks for posting this. ----- Some highlights: - these new SynCardia artificial hearts are basically the same as old Jarvik-7 hearts (part that goes inside patient's chest), save for different sizes available today - just the external part is now more modern (thanks to advances in power sources they can be now portable) - big problem with Jarvik-7 at those earlier times were infections and blood clotting (leading to strokes), but doctors today know better how to manage this (as far as I understood, this is not due to better mechanical design of the heart but due to better medication / monitoring / protocols compared to ~30 years ago) - these new SynCardia hearts were used for already ~1,600 patients (as "bridge" while waiting for heart transplant) - FDA approved trial for use of these artificial hearts as permanent solution (no heart transplant needed), the first patient already got implanted this heart for permanent use
- known 10y agoArtificial KIDNEY will be a boon for human beings
- Sinaf 10y agoPlease think about becoming an organ donor. It is completely ok to decide against it. At least you have contemplated the idea. http://www.organdonor.gov/ http://www.organdonor.gov/
- jamesblonde 10y agoWhere I live it is opt out, not opt in.
- Ftuuky 10y agoSame here.
- fernandotakai 10y agosame. people that opt-out have 'non-donor' on their ids (my father is not a donor -- not sure why tbf)
- JorgeGT 10y agoNo need in my country, it is opt-out instead of opt-in :)
- yetanotheracc 10y agoI registered as a donor in the UK. I received a leaflet saying that I should discuss this with my relatives because apparently those people have the power to kill the person needing my organs [1]. Fuck that. [1] https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/news-and-campaigns/news/families-saying-no-to-donation-results-in-missed-transplant-opportunities-for-uk-patients/ https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/news-and-campaigns/news/fam...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bd 10y agoSee also this reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) thread from another patient with such device from 2 years ago (2014): https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24a8ln/hello_reddit_i_have_been_on_a_heart_transplant/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24a8ln/hello_reddit_i...
- clentaminator 10y agoFun fact: The book Infinite Jest includes a character who keeps their artificial heart in their handbag. In one scene, the handbag is snatched by a passing thief which leads to the character shouting "She stole my heart, stop her!". As expected, this is tragically misconstrued by passersby who believe that the woman was in the middle of a sad yet not unexpected lovers quarrel, whereas in actual fact her heart had been stolen. Tragicomedy in the same scene.
- wageslave 10y agoNot surprising considering my boss who was born without a heart.
- cia48621793 10y agoHow could you be so heartless! Oh, how could you be so heartless!
- 6stringmerc 10y agoLove seeing these stories about the will to live and fighting through hardship and making the most of every opportunity. These sorts of folks - who just want to be normal - really strike a chord with me. Fascinating specific instance and type of treatment.
- grimmdude 10y agoWow, would hate for one of those supply lines to fail :|
- kilroy123 10y agoI wonder if it is just better to have the artificial heart for the rest of your life? With all the complications with having a heart transplant, it seems like it could be equally dangerous. Note, I'm a lay person, and have no clue. Just pondering.
- maxerickson 10y agoPresumably the doctors involved are balancing the various trade offs when they go with the transplant.
- slowm5 10y agowhoa, one step closer to becoming cyborgs.
- gazarullz 10y agoI don't know why for a second I've read that he lived more than a year without internet.
- googletazer 10y agoIts good to hear people are working on things like these, artificial hearts prolonging life. Gives some perspective and your own problems pale in comparison.