LVAD: Left Ventricular Assist Devices
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You've been living with heart failure for a while now. It's gotten worse. You're feeling tired, out of breath, and anxious. You're wondering what steps you can take to feel better. The heart device specialist at UVA Health can help answer that question. A left ventricular assist device (LVAD) can help your end-stage heart failure.
An LVAD is a battery-operated, mechanical pump. We use surgery to put it inside your body, It helps your heart pump blood around your body. UVA Health was the first hospital in Virginia to implant LVADs.
Get the Latest LVAD Tech at UVA Health
Our heart failure program won 2 national awards from the American Heart Association for the quality of our care. We've earned recognition for using the latest LVAD tech, which is the smallest pump used in the United States. The devices can last 3-5 years. And, you can go home with these devices rather than stay in the hospital.
If you're seriously ill, having an LVAD allows you to have other procedures that you might have been too sick for without it.
How the LVAD Helped This Patient
The LVAD helps Mark Wolf, a heart failure patient, while he waits for a heart transplant. Watch Mark talk about how his LVAD manages his heart failure.
Heart failure patients have a very difficult situation. They have an advanced disease. They often clinically do not feel well because they have difficulties with breathing. And it's a very scary situation to be in, knowing that your heart is failing.
About eight years ago, I started to have heart problems that were perhaps related to my congenital heart defect. I had rhythmic difficulties and difficulties with flow. And various solutions would work temporarily but not permanently.
And so I ended up being diagnosed as a candidate for heart transplant after having heart failure. During that time, a year ago-- almost exactly a year ago-- I had this device, this left ventricular assist device, as it's called. And so that's enabled me to function well in anticipation of getting a heart transplant.
When hearts are failing, we can sometimes implant what's called a left ventricular assist device, which is a pump that's surgically placed to take over a lot of the pumping function of the heart to keep people alive.
We do the full spectrum of heart surgery in patients with heart failure, including coronary bypass, grafting, mitral valve surgery. And then in patients with advanced heart failure, offering device therapies, such as ventricular assist devices, which help the heart pump, and heart transplantation for people with end-stage heart failure.
So patients with heart failure can be treated with a range of therapies, from medications to surgery to, even with severe disease like Mr. Wolf, left ventricular assist devices and heart transplant. Here at UVA, we have specialists in that whole spectrum of care who can offer the most appropriate treatment for the right patient at the right time.
Being able to offer them therapy that gives them back their life is the ultimate reward.
For more information, visit NBC29.com. Count on us for your family.
LVAD Instead of Heart Transplant
UVA Health is also certified to use LVADs as an alternative to heart transplants.
Medical restrictions and age keeps some heart failure patients from getting a heart transplant. But, you may benefit from an LVAD as a permanent transplant alternative.