An Australian patient has become the first in the world to be discharged from a hospital with a BiVACOR Total Artificial heart. Video by AAP and St Vincent’s Hospital
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00:00I mean, it's an artificial heart that completely replaces the heart, so both sides of the heart,
00:05and it pumps blood to both the lungs and to the body.
00:08It does that with this rapidly spinning disc that's located within this device.
00:14That rapidly spinning disc is levitated by electromagnetic field,
00:18and that means that there's no mechanical action,
00:20and therefore the device can operate for a very long time,
00:24and it needs to be durable as an artificial heart.
00:26And it's very different from traditional artificial hearts,
00:28which have a fill-to-empty mechanism like a bladder that will pump the blood forward
00:33and form mechanical valves.
00:34Here, there's no valves at all, just one spinning disc that won't wear out.
00:39So there's a wire that will come out of the skin and go to a control box
00:42that the user will change batteries out every couple of hours,
00:46and that's all they do.
00:47Basically, keep the device powered, and the device does the rest.
00:50Yeah, it weighs about 650 grams, a pound and a half,
00:53and it's similar to the male heart.
00:55It's around about that kind of weight.
00:57It looks heavy because it's metal and it's compact,
00:59but it fits inside the chest nicely and stays in place.
01:02And then we ask every single patient,
01:03can you feel this?
01:04And they're like, feel what?
01:05It feels fine.
01:07And they can't hear it at all unless they get a stethoscope,
01:09and they can hear it.
01:11It's kind of like a turbine engine inside their heart, inside their chest.
01:15So, yeah, they've been very happy with the function of the device.
01:23For more information, visit www.FEMA.gov