A Bio-Mechanical System of Systems for Heart Failure Patients

Heart failure is a disease that affects millions of people in the world. It is manifested by an inability of the heart to pump enough blood in the circulatory system to meet the body's need of oxygenated blood. For many patients who have not responded to drug treatments, the only alternative is a heart transplantation. While the patient is waiting for a donor heart, he/she must be kept alive comfortably until a donor heart becomes available. Clearly, prolonging life is relevant only if the patient's quality of life is improved. One approach to accomplish this goal is to implant a mechanical pump (known as a Left Ventricular Assist Device or LVAD) whose purpose is to help the heart by pumping an additional amount of blood in the circulatory system to supplement the amount of blood pumped by the heart. In this paper, we propose a novel approach in which the heart and the LVAD are considered as a system of systems (SoS), one biological and the other mechanical, that together must work in tandem as an integrated SoS to accomplish the difficult task of keeping the patient alive while also providing him/her with a comfortable quality of life. Without this SoS working properly and responding to the patient's changing needs, the patient will not survive. In this paper, we review the various components of this SoS and explore the challenges and benefits of this new technology in treating heart failure patients.