ravinlunachick Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 or pulse? My answer is no longer the same as it might have been before I read this article. I find this an incredibly disturbing proposition, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. However, if it were my husband or child that needed this "heart", I'd get over it in a heartbeat. {wokka, wokka} :lol: I think it could be a wonderful answer to the shortages of hearts available for transplant. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/no-pulse-how-doctors-reinvented-human-heart?page=all Building a heart that mimics nature’s lub-dub may be as comically shortsighted as Leonardo da Vinci designing a flying machine with flapping wings. Nature is not always the best designer, at least when it comes to things that humans must build and maintain. So the newest artificial heart doesn’t imitate the cardiac muscle at all. Instead, it whirs like a little propeller, pushing blood through the body at a steady rate. After 500 million years of evolution accustoming the human body to blood moving through us in spurts, a pulse may not be necessary. That, in any case, is the point of view of the 50-odd calves, and no fewer than three human beings, who have gotten along just fine with their blood coursing through them as evenly as Freon through an air conditioner.“His giant heartbeat,” Rainer Maria Rilke wrote of God early in the past century, “is diverted in us into little pulses.” Nowadays, maybe not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvasMom Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I had a patient once who had no heart so yeah. His was so bad that he was better off being sustained on a bivad until he got a transplant. It was very weird, as a cardiac nurse, to keep looking up at the monitor and not see the ECG line. Lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinlunachick Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 I didn't even think of someone connected to machines. For some reason, that's more acceptable to me than the notion of a person walking around in the world with no pulse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laundrycrisis Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 If your blood is somehow carrying oxygen to your organs and brain and those are all working, you are definitely alive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mergath Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 If your blood is somehow carrying oxygen to your organs and brain and those are all working, you are definitely alive. :iagree: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truscifi Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I wonder if they will find it delivers oxygen more efficiently? :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissad2 Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 That is completely fascinating! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brehon Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I had a patient once who had no heart so yeah. His was so bad that he was better off being sustained on a bivad until he got a transplant. It was very weird, as a cardiac nurse, to keep looking up at the monitor and not see the ECG line. Lol! There are, I think, 3 patients in my district who have either the LVAD or the BiVAD. I think the craziest thing is how you perform "compressions" during CPR. (Hint: you don't compress the chest as in traditional CPR.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 (edited) That is awesome. The wannabe science geek in me is intrigued. If your brain is working, your brain is working. If you are one of the people who dies waiting for a heart transplant each year (or one of the many more people who loves one of those people) I reckon it would not matter how weird it is to not have a pulse. If it proves to be a better option than the alternatives, that is great. Edited March 30, 2012 by kijipt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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