Robotic sleeve hugs the heart to keep it pumping

Scientists are developing a robotic sleeve that can encase a flabby diseased 

heart and gently squeeze to keep it pumping. So far it's been tested only in animals, 

improving blood flow in pigs. But this “soft robotic“ device mimics the natural

 movements of a beating heart, a strategy for next-generation

treatments of deadly heart failure. The key: A team from Harvard University and 

Boston Children's Hospital wound artificial muscles into the thin silicone sleeve, 

so that it alternately compresses, twists and relaxes in synchrony with the heart 

tissue underneath. “You can customise the function of the assist device to meet 

individual needs of that heart,“ said Dr Frank Pigula, a cardiac surgeon.

“The nice thing about this is it can go on the outside of the heart, so it doesn't 

have to contact blood at all,“ said Harvard associate engineering professor Conor 

Walsh, senior author of the research. Unlike with traditional rigid medical devices, 

the soft robotics approach allowed design of a sleeve that could fit snugly over a 

heart's irregular surfaces. The researchers programmed the robotic sleeve to move 

in the same pattern as the weakened heart muscle it surrounds while strengthening 

and optimising each heartbeat. As the sleeve relaxes, it helps the damaged heart 

better expand and refill with blood ready to be pumped out with the next heartbeat, 

said Pigula.

Source: The Times of India