The total artificial heart is a mechanical device designed to replace a person's true heart when he suffers from late-stage heart failure .
The term heart failure refers to a serious pathological condition, in which the heart is incapable of satisfying the blood demands of the organism to which it belongs.
It is defined at the last stage in all those cases where the only treatments that can still give life expectancy are heart transplantation or total artificial heart implantation.
Therefore, people who need a total artificial heart are highly debilitated subjects, who have no other solution than the replacement of a sick heart.
The typical symptoms of severe heart failure are dyspnea, extreme tiredness, swollen ankles and legs, a persistent cough, nausea, weight loss and tachycardia.
IN CHILDREN
The total artificial hearts in use today have dimensions that allow their implantation in most adults, but not in children . The latter, in fact, have a very small chest and unable to accommodate a device of a certain size.
Doctors and medical engineers are collaborating assiduously in order to create a model of a total artificial heart with reduced dimensions, suitable for a child's body and having the same characteristics as those currently used for adults.
