3 ms·

Let's hope this improves rapidly every year and can become a convenient, inexpensive temporary replacement in a few decades. I wonder what the progress curve w

Let's hope this improves rapidly every year and can become a convenient, inexpensive temporary replacement in a few decades. I wonder what the progress curve will look like. This time it's 100 days, next year will it be 110 or 200? I wonder what the shape of the curve is?

jart 2y ago
[flagged]
- appleorchard46 2y ago
  Source? This seems hard to believe and google isn't pulling anything like it up.
  - teraflop 2y ago
    It's not true at all. A cardioplegia solution is injected into the heart itself to arrest the heartbeat, and to protect it from tissue damage while awaiting transplantation. But this is done after the donor's chest has already been surgically opened, and has nothing at all to do with "paralyzing" them or preventing them from struggling. If they were going to struggle, surely they would do so when the operation started! But no such paralysis is needed, of course, because the donor has already been determined to be brain-dead by that point. As an interesting note, even the basic premise of the preceding comment is not accurate. A small but increasing number of heart transplants are performed as DCD operations, which means the donor's heart stops naturally on its own before being removed: https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2022/11/21/13/31/Emerging-Frontier-in-Heart-Transplantation https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2022/11/21...
    - armenarmen 2y ago
      sorry, so the heart is still beating in the dead donor? The doctors harvesting the heart stops the donors heart from beating? I have to be missing something here. You cannot be saying that doctors stop the donors heart from beating (kill them) before taking the heart.
      - qingcharles 2y ago
        As poster above you states, they are clinically dead at the point the heart is removed. Their brain has stopped functioning. There is no coming back. They are a meat popsicle.
      - MadnessASAP 2y ago
        A stopped heart doesn't necessarily mean a person's dead, a beating heart doesn't mean their alive.
      - ArnoVW 2y ago
        If you’re a heart donor, you have been diagnosed as “brain dead”. This means that even though your heart is still beating and you’re drawing breath, your ECG is a flatline, and there is no hope of recovery (with our current medical technology) That means that your grieving next of kin have decided (for you, since you no longer have conscious thoughts) that your last act on this planet will be an act of kindness. You will give your heart, lungs, eyes, etc to someone that can still make use of them. The last thing you will do, is saving the life of someone. So yes, they (directly or indirectly) stop the heart. And that is a good thing.
      - teraflop 2y ago
        When they remove the donor heart, the donor's body will die no matter what. How did you think a heart transplant worked? That's why, as others have said, it's only done when the donor is already legally and medically dead, even though their heart is beating. It is technically possible to artificially keep the heart beating during the transplant process, but that's a very recent technical development and a much more difficult surgical procedure. So stopping the heart first is normal.
  - mathieuh 2y ago
    Sounds like an offshoot of one of those Death Panel conspiracy theories
energy123 2y ago
It's longer than 100 days already in their preclinical testing but they took it out because the patient found a heart transplant. They say one upcoming improvement is wireless power via skin, somehow. At the moment the rechargeable battery lasts for five hours.
- Gigachad 2y ago
  Sounds kinda scary. So if the battery goes flat or gets disconnected you just immediately die?
  - yonatan8070 2y ago
    I mean, if this didn't exist you'd just immediately die a lot sooner. So I think it's a fair trade-off.
  - anshumankmr 2y ago
    closest thing to the arc reactor in the iron man movie...
  - Maxion 2y ago
    These devices have double batteries, external power, and will beep like crazy already quite a while before it runs flat.
  - ljf 2y ago
    I can’t find the link now, but that chap who died a couple of years ago after living most of his life in an iron lung, had a similar story of being transported home on the back of a flatbed truck with a generator running, if the power went out he suffocated. His mother slept by his bed and in the case of a power cut had to manually help him breathe until the power returned. An amazing man and amazing he made it so far in life.
    - ljf 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor... Quote: He spent eighteen months in the hospital. At discharge, his parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.

jart 2y ago

[flagged]

appleorchard46 2y ago
Source? This seems hard to believe and google isn't pulling anything like it up.
- teraflop 2y ago
  It's not true at all. A cardioplegia solution is injected into the heart itself to arrest the heartbeat, and to protect it from tissue damage while awaiting transplantation. But this is done after the donor's chest has already been surgically opened, and has nothing at all to do with "paralyzing" them or preventing them from struggling. If they were going to struggle, surely they would do so when the operation started! But no such paralysis is needed, of course, because the donor has already been determined to be brain-dead by that point. As an interesting note, even the basic premise of the preceding comment is not accurate. A small but increasing number of heart transplants are performed as DCD operations, which means the donor's heart stops naturally on its own before being removed: https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2022/11/21/13/31/Emerging-Frontier-in-Heart-Transplantation https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Articles/2022/11/21...
  - armenarmen 2y ago
    sorry, so the heart is still beating in the dead donor? The doctors harvesting the heart stops the donors heart from beating? I have to be missing something here. You cannot be saying that doctors stop the donors heart from beating (kill them) before taking the heart.
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      As poster above you states, they are clinically dead at the point the heart is removed. Their brain has stopped functioning. There is no coming back. They are a meat popsicle.
    - MadnessASAP 2y ago
      A stopped heart doesn't necessarily mean a person's dead, a beating heart doesn't mean their alive.
    - ArnoVW 2y ago
      If you’re a heart donor, you have been diagnosed as “brain dead”. This means that even though your heart is still beating and you’re drawing breath, your ECG is a flatline, and there is no hope of recovery (with our current medical technology) That means that your grieving next of kin have decided (for you, since you no longer have conscious thoughts) that your last act on this planet will be an act of kindness. You will give your heart, lungs, eyes, etc to someone that can still make use of them. The last thing you will do, is saving the life of someone. So yes, they (directly or indirectly) stop the heart. And that is a good thing.
    - teraflop 2y ago
      When they remove the donor heart, the donor's body will die no matter what. How did you think a heart transplant worked? That's why, as others have said, it's only done when the donor is already legally and medically dead, even though their heart is beating. It is technically possible to artificially keep the heart beating during the transplant process, but that's a very recent technical development and a much more difficult surgical procedure. So stopping the heart first is normal.
- mathieuh 2y ago
  Sounds like an offshoot of one of those Death Panel conspiracy theories

energy123 2y ago

It's longer than 100 days already in their preclinical testing but they took it out because the patient found a heart transplant. They say one upcoming improvement is wireless power via skin, somehow. At the moment the rechargeable battery lasts for five hours.

Gigachad 2y ago
Sounds kinda scary. So if the battery goes flat or gets disconnected you just immediately die?
- yonatan8070 2y ago
  I mean, if this didn't exist you'd just immediately die a lot sooner. So I think it's a fair trade-off.
- anshumankmr 2y ago
  closest thing to the arc reactor in the iron man movie...
- Maxion 2y ago
  These devices have double batteries, external power, and will beep like crazy already quite a while before it runs flat.
- ljf 2y ago
  I can’t find the link now, but that chap who died a couple of years ago after living most of his life in an iron lung, had a similar story of being transported home on the back of a flatbed truck with a generator running, if the power went out he suffocated. His mother slept by his bed and in the case of a power cut had to manually help him breathe until the power returned. An amazing man and amazing he made it so far in life.
  - ljf 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor... Quote: He spent eighteen months in the hospital. At discharge, his parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.