Living with artificial heart: Pros and Cons

Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash

Is it actually possible to live with an artificial heart?

Not a long along, in 1982, Cardiothoracic surgeon William DeVries, carefully removed the ruined heart of Dr.Barney Clark and replaced it with the World first permanent artificial heart successfully. It may seem theoretical possible to just live on with that, but is the practical approach just as enough as the papers? Today, the highest number of time a person went on living with an artificial heart is just five years.

A total artificial heart (TAH) is pump that is installed to provide circulation and replace heart ventricles that are diseased or damaged. The ventricles pump blood out of the heart to lungs and other parts of the body. Machines outside the body controls the implanted pumps, helping blood flow to and from the heart.

SO WHAT IS AN ARTIFICIAL HEART?

An artificial heart is a device that replaces that replaces the heart: typically used to bridge the time to heart transplantation or the permanent replace of the heart in a case that the transplant is impossible.

Up until now, the artificial heart has been a less optimal solution to biological heart. It is due to the fact that these are still powered with some external device like air compressor or battery which should be charged quite frequently. It is also difficult to adapt to their environment. And the rate of blood flow rate is not so possible in case of artificial heart and it may cause complications in the person living with an artificial heart. Artificial hearts have had complications related to immune-response by the system. It may even cause the serious problem of blood clot in heart and less effective in arrhythmias.

Artificial heart works not less than an actual natural human heart.

There is always a higher demand of heart transplant compared to the hearts available. So, artificial heart is the only way to reduce the demand of heart transplant. No doubt an artificial heart may even last and produce more productivity than a used human heart. It even restores the hemodynamic stability, rising blood pressure. It is readily available and there is no need for immunosuppressive drugs. Moreover, very little medical follow up is needed forthe patient and surgery can be done within a short time resulting in faster discharge from the hospital.

CONCLUSION

Wrapping things up, we can safely say that in the coming days, more and more people are going to be benefitted with the artificial heart. The discovery of Robert Jarvik in 1946 has come a long way up and this thing doesn’t seem like it wants some rest.