A ventricular assist device (VAD) helps pump blood from your heart to the rest of your body. It’s used when your heart is not able to pump enough blood on its own. The device consists of a pump, tubes ...

VADs are also classified based on the location of a pump relative to the patient: intracorporeal, paracorporeal, and extracorporeal. In general, a pulsatile VAD is paracorporeal, and an axial VAD ...

The pumps are driven by either pneumatic or electrical drive systems. Examples of this type of devices are the Thoratec pneumatic VAD (pVAD) and implantable VAD (IVAD; Thoratec Laboratories Corp ...

It’s called VAD, or a ventricular assist device. The VAD is implanted through open heart surgery and helps the heart pump blood. Over the years, the devices have gotten smaller, lighter ...

Doctors often treat these patients with a ventricular assist device, an implantable heart pump that assists the weak muscle of the heart’s left ventricle in pumping blood throughout the body.

The young patient is one of the world’s first to receive cardiac rehabilitation workouts while a device helps her heart pump.