- So let's say a patient's
Heart Failure gets to this point where medications and
lifestyle changes help but really, they just aren't enough. And the patient's symptomatic
almost all the time. Well, that's when we start to think about medical device implants or surgery. So there are actually a few
types of medical devices that can be used. And the first one we call
the ventricular assist device or sometimes just the VAD, V-A-D. This device assists or it
helps the patient's ventricle or ventricles. Since with Heart Failure
one or both ventricles aren't pumping very well, these devices actually help out with that and essentially take over the
pumping for the ventricle. And so how they typically work is that there's this small tube that attaches to the
ventricle that needs help. And we'll say that in this case the left ventricle needs help. And so it's coming from the
bottom of the ventricle, here. So at this point the blood, instead of exiting out the artery as you'd normally expect it
to, it sort of rerouted, here. And so it goes through this
tube to this separate pump. The VAD then pumps it out
through this next tube which connects up with the
artery and then leaves the heart. So we're sort of bypassing this whole area and letting the VAD shoulder
all the pumping work. These VADs are usually connected
to a small control unit that's actually outside the body. So a cable goes from the
inside, connected to the VAD, through a small hole in the abdomen, to a control unit that's outside, and it's also connected to some batteries. Both of which are usually kind of worn with straps over the body. So I drew it for the left ventricle and so usually we call
that a left VAD or an LVAD. But you can certainly have one
for the right ventricle too. And we call that an RVAD or a right VAD. Those usually connect
up to the right atrium, take blood to the pump, and then give it back to the
artery on the right side, which heads off to the lungs. You can even have a BiVAD, meaning that there's a
pump for each ventricle. And depending on the VAD it may pump blood just like your heart does,
kind of rhythmically. But it could also be a
continuous flow of blood. So in that case, there's no pumping. And you might not have a normal pulse but your body's still getting
the blood that it needs. Implantable VADs are usually
reserved for people who are either waiting for a heart transplant or as a long term solution for those that actually
can't have heart transplants. So the other type of
medical device implant is something called Cardiac
Resynchronization therapy. This could be a pacemaker only or it could be a special dual
pacemaker and defibrillator. For the pacemaker you
have this small device that's implanted in the chest. And then these electrical wires are, sometimes we call them leads,
that go from the device to both the left and the right ventricles. One thing to notice though, is that to actually get
to the left ventricle they have to go in through
your coronary veins and then kind of go around the heart to the outside of the left ventricle. And that's why I kind
of drew it dotted as it, as soon as it's going, sort
of around the backside. With Heart Failure we
know that both the right and the left ventricles can be
affected differently, right? And so what can happen is that
they beat at different times. And this makes the heart
a way less efficient pump. The pacemaker sends signals
down these wires or these leads at the same time to tell both ventricles to pump at the same time, leading to a much more normal
and efficient pumping action. Now this device might also come with what's called a defibrillator. If the patient's Heart Failure leads to life threatening
rapid heart rates, and then it's going sort
of uncontrollably fast, the device can deliver a shock that sort of resets the
heart to a normal rhythm. But besides medical device implants a patient can also have
a surgical intervention. And so they might be given
stents to help with blood flow for coronary artery disease. These are placed over
areas in the arteries that have plaque buildup which help to widen the
arteries and make it easier for blood to flow through them. And so then it's easier for
the heart to pump through them. Another surgery is called
a coronary artery bypass. This surgical technique bypasses or sort of reroutes the blood supply around a blocked artery instead. Again, just like a stent
it makes it a lot easier to pump through this artery that's not blocked anymore, right? Usually the doctor connects
or sometimes we say grafts a healthy artery from
somewhere else in the body where its absence isn't
as much of a big deal. Finally, what's considered the ultimate surgical intervention is a complete heart transplantation. This is where the patient's
entire heart is removed and replaced with a healthy donor heart. And this procedure is
really limited to patients that are considered at
end stage Heart Failure or where other medical treatments
in surgery have failed.