Word: patiently
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...greatest threat of arrhythmias is that the first episode can be fatal. In emergencies the heart can be electrically shocked to restore a healthy beat. But many people do not get help in time and are not resuscitated. One device that doctors now use to diagnose a patient's irregular rhythms is the 24-hour EKG recording. A person wears a tape recorder-size monitor that has electrodes leading from it to his chest as he pursues his normal daily routine. The machine automatically records his heart's rhythm over the day, during which time he keeps...
Implantable Defibrillators. To help some patients with severe rhythm disruption, scientists at Johns Hopkins University and Sinai Hospital of Baltimore developed a small device called an automatic implantable defibrillator. This is placed in the abdomen and has electrodes that are connected to the heart's right atrium and to the ventricles' pointed tip. It is powered by lithium batteries good for three years or 100 shocks. Says Hopkins Cardiologist Myron Weisfeldt: "When the patient has an arrhythmia persisting for at least ten seconds, the machine waits another five seconds and then discharges an electric shock, which usually stops...
...March 9 Stanford surgeons performed a heart-lung transplant, only the fourth such operation ever and the first since 1971. The patient was Mary Gohlke, 45, a newspaper executive from Mesa, Ariz. She had been suffering from pulmonary hypertension, a condition in which high blood pressure in the vessels of the lungs impairs breathing and eventually damages the heart. Dr. Bruce Reitz and his Stanford team severed the aorta and trachea and cut through the heart's right atrium to remove the heart and lungs. "The whole thing comes out as a package," explains Reitz. Then they replaced...
...ventricles), leaving the upper ones (the atria) intact. Then he will sew Dacron fittings to the aorta, pulmonary artery and atria. The artificial heart, actually two ventricles, is then snapped into place "like Tupperware," says DeVries. A plastic tube leads from each ventricle through openings made in the patient's abdomen to a breadbox-size console that controls the rate and pressure of air pulsed to the heart. The console in turn is connected to an air compressor. As air flows into each ventricle, it pushes a thin membrane upward, expelling blood that has entered through the atria...
...perhaps also affect the neck, jaw or back. The victim may become extremely short of breath, break into a cold sweat, feel weak and nauseated and possibly vomit. Along with these signs and symptoms, there may be palpitations. The face can turn a ghastly gray, and the patient may experience anxiety, even a sense of impending doom. Says Cardiologist Marshall Franklin of San Diego's Clairemont Community Hospital: "It is like nothing the patient has ever known before, a feeling that something cataclysmic is happening...