Intelligent cardiac assist fabric beats your heart for you

Crazy artificial hearts and even heart-tissue based robots are nothing new -- to say nothing of the Pimp My Heart bass-booster -- but actually squeezing your existing heart to extend its life is definitely a novel idea. The concept, from a team at Leeds University, is based around an intelligent, motorized webbing that wraps around your heart. When sensors indicate that your pump needs a jump, the webbing contracts, squeezing blood through your body. It's an elegant take on a pretty low-tech solution, and the team has high hopes the uncomplicated nature of the device will lead to applications from transplant assistance to heart therapy when simulator trials are finished and the webbing leaves the prototype stage -- but sadly, there's no word on when that might be.

[Via MedGadget]

[Wwhat @ Feb 15th 2008 4:51AM]

Chance of long term damage to the heart: 100%

[Tom Oliveri @ Feb 15th 2008 5:28AM]

i can think of a hundred uses for this in the bedroom...

[Surur @ Feb 15th 2008 6:40AM]

I can see this webbing slicing quite nicely through those coronary arteries after a week or two of squeezing.

[absurdio @ Feb 15th 2008 5:32AM]

I hate to complain. I appreciate what Engadget does a great deal. That said, I, like most people who begin posts with "I hate to complain," have a complaint:

Do you guys proof-read anything?
That last sentence sentence is so many kinds of compound that I'm not even sure it's a sentence anymore. And that wouldn't be a problem if it weren't a detriment to clarity. I suspect very strongly that "least" isn't the word you were looking for, but I can't say I know what you were looking for. Also, "the the."

[absurdio @ Feb 15th 2008 5:35AM]

Edit (?): For clarity, that last "were" in my post ought to have been italicized. :-/

[Wwhat @ Feb 15th 2008 8:04AM]

Word they were going for would be 'lead'
"will lead to applications from transplant assistance to heart therapy when simulator trials are finished and the webbing leaves the prototype stage"

[mian @ Feb 15th 2008 5:33AM]

When it becomes self-aware, that's an awfully good place for it to be to begin issuing orders to you. "Oh, you don't want to [do whatever self-aware heart pumps want their human underlings to do], do you?" "How about now?"

[MikeG @ Feb 15th 2008 6:37AM]

Imagine how relaxing this would be, all those years your heart has been coninually pumping, contracting, and now it gets a break!

[Blaktornado @ Feb 15th 2008 8:43AM]

And then when it comes off or you start running... Boom. Heart attack.

[ammi @ Feb 15th 2008 9:52AM]

>the device will least
>device will least
>will least
>least



>_______>

[Mikey-D @ Feb 15th 2008 10:30AM]

Wow I didn't even know Ryan Seacrest worked in the medical field! :)

[Hraefn @ Feb 15th 2008 10:47AM]

As someone whose father died of cardiac arrest, I say that any advances in this particular field of medicine is a good thing.

[tbirdman @ Feb 15th 2008 1:18PM]

my grandfather died from complete heart failure recently. i am greatfull for coverage like this, but i don't know how well the body would like having a cloth covering a vital organ. it might just reject it. but the premise is awfully interesting though.

[grjohnston @ Feb 16th 2008 1:47AM]

How are they going to make it contract on each side separately, as the heart does?

[idiot @ Feb 17th 2008 3:23PM]

in soviet russia...

[Shon S. @ Feb 17th 2008 6:25PM]

i can see athletes using this as a cheat. they (lets say run) so far and when they start tiring, this thing kicks in and helps them.