JeremyR controls this page. 

     This is the artificial heart.

Pictures are links

the AbioCor                the Jarvik-7

The process of technological design

Heart disease is among the leading cause of death in present times. Doctors have successfully replaced damaged hearts with hearts of donors, or people who have past away and their heart is still okay. Medical engineers have developed pacemakers that improve the ability of a damaged heart to pump blood. None of the solutions are the best. Although it is very complex, the heart is really a pump to make the blood circulate in your body. Using technology to build to build a better replacement pump should be possible. The process of technological design involves many choices. In the case of an artificial heart, choices about how and what to develop cost, safely, and patient preference. What kind of technology will be best for the recipient of the artificial heart?

Design and develop

Several designs for the artificial heart have been introduced. The "Javrik-7" was the first intended to be a long term replacement for a human heart. The "Javrik-7" did not work very well though. Although it lengthened the lives of some patients, but their quality of life was poor. Doctors and engineers knew they needed to refine the design further. For example, the heart needed to be smaller, and it needed to have a better power system. The heart also needed to be made out of better material so that it would not cause blood clots when implanted into a patient.

Test and improve

The new AbioCor heart may hold the solutions too many of these problems. This fully self contained implantable device makes the goal of replacing a damaged heart seems not so far away. Still, many improvements will be needed before the AbioCor is routinely put into human beings. Tests of the AbioCor are still in progress. The AbioCor is a permanent heart that would last about 50 years without failing and it will be in effect in 2011 but it is being tested right now. The CardioWest is FDA approved, but it is only a temporary replacement heart and will last about 15 years.

The down side of things

There are a few down sides on getting an artificial heart. One of them is that for the rest of your life you will need to take an "antirejection" pill that will help your body accept the new heart. It will try to reject any foreign object such as an artificial heart or a donor heart. You also need to take an "anticoagulant" pill that which thins the blood so the artificial heart is able to pump it more easily. If an athlete gets a transplant it is an 85% chance the athlete will never play that sport again. It is difficult to increase the heart rate, thus meaning that if you got a transplant you probably would never have to run the mile on Wednesday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_heart  For more awsome info 

Bibliography

McDougal Littel California Life Science book. 

     The inside of an artificial heat is important to the person, because if one part fails the person has an excelerated dieing process. The only way the person has a chance of living is if the person goes to the hospital, the second the person realizes the artificial heart is broken.                          

This is how it works. The artificial heart is important to mony people that have heart diseases that can't really be helped by doctors, so people either need a heart transplant or need to get a artficial heart to help them live, because if they don't they will die.

poohnevercry made this video.

http://www.dancewithshadows.com/tech/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/iit-artificial-heart-photo.jpg

http://www.mece.ualberta.ca/Courses/mec265/vrprojects/heart.gif