Ventricular assist devices (VADs) are machines that help improve pumping actions. A left ventricular assist device (LVAD) either takes over or assists the pumping role of the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber. Newer LVADs are meant to be permanent in people with severe heart failure. It allows a person to be mobile, sometimes returning home to await a heart transplant.
Part of the device is implanted in your heart and abdomen and part remains outside your body. You carry the external part of the device on a belt around your waist or on a shoulder strap. Most LVADs right now have an electric pump, an electronic controller, an energy supply (usually a battery weighing about 8 pounds), and two tubes. One tube carries blood from your left ventricle into the device. The other tube takes blood pumped from the device into your aorta (artery) to be circulated throughout your body.
LVADs are used for patients whose heartbeat has slowed dangerously (bradycardia) to help take over the pumping action of the failing heart. Studies now suggest that in some people the use of an LVAD may allow some of the damaged heart muscle to heal, perhaps even helping some patients avoid heart transplants.
Until recently, these machines required that the patient remain in the hospital. Smaller battery-powered LVAD units, however, are allowing many patients to leave the hospital and are proving to be effective bridges to heart transplants in adults.
For example, the HeartMate, a portable LVAD about the size of a portable CD player (2 in. by 4 in.), is implanted in the upper abdomen. The implanted device plugs into an external power base, which is employed when the patient is at rest to recharge the battery and provide continuous power.
The LVAD is known as the “bridge to transplantation” for patients who haven’t responded to other treatments and are hospitalized with extreme systolic heart failure. There are risks involved with many of these devices, including bleeding, blood clots, and right-side heart failure. Infections are a particular hazard.