Stan Larkin's Artificial Heart: Article Analysis

Today we are in great need of a solution to solve the problem of the shortage of human organs available for transplant. The website for Donate Life America estimates that in the United States over 100 people per day are added to the current list of over 100,000 men, women, and children that are waiting for life-saving transplants. Sadly enough, approximately 18 people a day on that list die just because they cannot outlive the wait for the organ that they so desperately need to survive. James Burdick, director of the Division of Transplantation for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services confirms, “The need for organ transplants continues to grow and this demand continues to outpace the supply of transplantable organs”. The

Imagine you are laying in a hospital bed connected to multiple machines, IV’s and monitors. The only thing keeping you alive is the heart and lung machine, the team of doctors, nurses and specialist. Even with the help of modern medicine you will only remain alive as long as you stay in that hospital bed; attached to those lifesaving machines. Even with the help of those machines your life is not guaranteed. Now imagine knowing that the only thing that can save your life is a heart transplant, and having to wait your turn on a very long list to get one.

“We have two options here: a heart transplant that has a chance of killing her and we would need to find a donor for or insert a picc line that has the odds of taking 6-12 months to work while also leaving a permanent hole in her right ventricle that will hardly affect her later on.”

Although these interventions may improve immediate survival in the short term, only coronary artery revascularization and cardiac transplantation have been shown to improve long-term survival.” (DeMarco & Chatterjee, 1993)

Mr. Lisiecki is the founder of the Heart Challenge Swim Association (http://www.heartchallengeswim.org/), and a volunteer of the Mended Hearts Community (http://mendedhearts.org/), dedicated to pediatric congenital heart defects research and awareness. According to the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, there are more than 18 congenital heart defects that affect children. Problems with his own heart eventually found him on the operating table of Belling ham’s Dr. Andrew Coletti, who performed corrective surgery and later implanted a defibrillator to insure a steady pulse of which he soon took advantage.

Kay, Neal, and Gregory T. Bittner. "Should Implantable Cardioverter-defibrillators and Permanent Pacemakers in Patients with Terminal Illn

Denton A. Cooley was the first surgeon to implant an artificial heart in a patient. Haskell Karp was waiting for a heart donor and running out of time. In the surgery, Cooley worked alongside Domingo Liotta. They removed the heart sixty-four hours later when a donor heart arrived. Cooley and Liotta then replaced the artificial heart with the donor heart. The patient did not live very long. However, this is not because the heart malfunctioned. The device is now on display at Smithsonian's National Museum of American History August 3, 1962, Cooley founded the Texas Heart Institute. This

The issue is whether to respect the family’s autonomy and remove the pacemaker that is prolonging Jeffery’s life and create more suffering, or if this is beneficent. Today, pacemakers are a common treatment for cardiac rhythm problems and can be life sustaining. According to Zellner et al. (2009), “As patients age and

This article is about Kelly Perkins, who has a disease of the heart. After she received a heart transplant. Then she climbed to the top of Half Dome Mountain in Yosemite, and she became the first heart transplant, that came to the top of Half Dome Mountain. Finally, she stayed at the top of mountain with proud, and her husband gave a bracelet for the

Adam Vasser was thirteen years old when an unknown virus infected his heart. When he arrived at a clinic, a doctor checked his vitals and he was rushed to a hospital. By the time he arrived he was having a complete heart failure. Adam waited in the hospital for four and a half months, only able to breathe with the assistance of a left-ventricular assist device, until he received a heart transplant that saved his life.

The device is needed when a person’s heart fails to operate correctly. A person needing an artificial heart would be extremely ill that is they would not be able to function like an everyday person. E.g. – walking.

A young professional hockey player collapsed during a game that had no previous symptoms or problems before the collapse. People began CPR and used an automated external defibrillator (AED) 3 times before paramedics arrived. This ultimately prevented him from dying from sudden cardiac arrest. He received an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator to correct his heart rhythms and was released without medications.

Stan Larkin, a patient who suffered from cardiomyopathy, survived 17 months without a heart, thanks to the SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver, a replacement bag, which kept him alive until finally arrived transplantation.

The heart is one of the most important organs in an organism’s body, no matter if they are aquatic, amphibian, or a mammal. This super organ works automatically, able to pump massive amounts of oxygen rich blood through the body by means of electrical impulses and the opening and closing of valves within its many layers. It is what keeps us and every other creature on this earth alive; so it is only natural for one to fear when there might be a problem with one’s heart. A cardiac arrhythmia can happen to anyone, no matter the age, race, or gender, and as such, doctors and scientist have spent years trying to better understand the heart and the way it functions so that they can try to prevent these problems and save millions of lives.

Tayt Andersen is an 8 year old boy from Rigby, Idaho, but he isn’t like all the other little kids in Rigby. Tayt was born without the left side of his heart. And, at just seven years old, he has had nine open-heart surgeries, twenty-four shunt revision surgeries, and three other life-saving surgeries. He has been Life Flighted ten times, flat-lined six times, and has spent more than three-fourths of his life in hospital beds at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Embree)