(Note this question was actually asked on Twitter by the excellent animation director Don Herzfeld, but I was intriqued so asked it here)
When a person with an artificial heart dies, does it just keep on pumping in there until a mortician turns it off somehow? Does it detect the fact they have died and stop by itself (that seems error prone!)
I suppose the same thing that happens when someone on a ventilator dies, once a doctor declares you dead someone shuts off the power source assuming they are in a hospital. If not they may do it when they perform the autopsy. Doubt it would make it to the undertaker, those things cost a lot.
afaik True artificial hearts are still years away. You may be thinking of a pacemaker or similar device which actually just helps regulate how/when the heart contracts.
Can’t be reused in the EU and the US. Found that article while looking for an answer to the OP, which I didn’t succeed at. But the batteries only last an hour (at least, on this model) without being hooked up to the external battery pack/power source (probably inductive charging) so it wouldn’t work too long without active intervention. There also looks to be a lot of ethical debate on the deactivating of the implants on dying patients.
Also, my spoon is too big.
Only artificial heart a remember was air powered.
I would highly assume if you died, it would simply run until it ran out of power.
I don’t think its triggered by any bio-feedback so it would have no idea that you have expired.
being artificial hearts are experimental i would also assume the hospital caring for the patient would remove the device before the mortician goes to work?
I can confirm, from personal experience, that they still work. Medic saw a blip on the monitor so we started to work her.
Me: Ummm, she’s kinda cold.
Medic: ::switches leads:: - ::looks up at family member:: - Does she have a pacemaker?
Medic: :smack:
What are you talking about? Many people including a former Vice-President have one (his is a partial not total replacement tho).
A VAD is not quite an artificial heart, but it does seem to perform some of the same functions.
Dick Cheney had a full-fledged heart transplant.
A partial refund and a coupon for half-off the next one, redeemable at participating surgery centers.
I know for a fact pacemaker batteries sometimes become paperweights. They have a nice feel in the hand, and look nice and shiny.
Since the subject of pacemakers has come up, I recall reading years ago about how used pacemakers are sometimes adjusted and re-used for animals. Partly because the rules are looser for veterinary medicine, and partly because animals don’t live as long, so a shorter expected lifetime for the device is acceptable. A 70 year old human* might* live to be 90, but a 10 year old dog isn’t going to make it to 30.
I’m picturing the doctors waiting around forlornly to establish time of death while the Energizer Bunny marches up and down the hall right outside the surgery room door.
If you “die” and the artificial heart keeps on truckin’ — and in particular keeps blood flowing to the brain — then what exactly defines when the patient “dies”? Will the patient keep breathing so that blood is oxygenated? What if the patient dies of respiratory failure so the blood keeps going to the brain but has no oxygen and too much carbon dioxide?
Will the brain continue functioning after death? Will the dead person’s brain continue thinking, even if only for a short while? Will that brain be consciously aware of being dead already?
It might not even take an artificial heart to create these horror scenarios.
I had a pacemaker installed four or five years ago, and was old enough then that I made sure to check with the electrophysiologist to make sure it wouldn’t interfere with end of life decision making. He assured me that when I went the pacemaker would continue to send signals to my heart, but in the absence of life the heart would stop beating. Pacemakers aren’t reusable without refurbishment, but are removed before cremation, as it’s possible for the heat of cremation to cause them to build pressure inside their casings and burst. Flying pieces of metal can damage the refractory inside the chamber.