Adam’s Heart Valve Surgery Blog

Hi everybody,

I just received a note from the Patient Education Team at the Cleveland Clinic about a new, online tool for patients with mitral valve regurgitation. The tool is pretty neat for learning about mitral valve regurgitation, the severity of mitral regurgitation, echocardiogram results, ejection fractions, heart dilation and atrial fibrillation.

Ultimately, this new Mitral Regurgitation Tool uses a series of interactive questions to determine whether-or-not you are currently a candidate for surgery. The tool leverages the current guidelines of the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology in determining your situation.
If you would like to use the Mitral Regurgitation Tool, click here.

Keep on tickin!

P.S. To leave a comment, please click here.

About The Author: Adam Pick is a double, heart valve surgery patient and author of The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. This unique book integrates the clinical facts of heart valve surgery with the personal experiences of 135 former valve surgery patients to help patients and caregivers better understand the problems, the opportunities and the realities of heart valve surgery. To learn more about Adam and his heart valve surgery book, click here.

Are you ready for another interesting “True / False” trivia question about heart valve surgery? Okay… Is this statement true or false?

One of the first heart-lung machines used in cardiac surgery, the Dewall-Lillehei machine, cost only $15 to manufacture.

For the answer, please scroll below the picture of Richard Dewall and his artificial heart-lung machine (1955).

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I just received a great question from Heidi about heart valve disease, surgery and seniors.

She writes, “Adam - My mom, Betty, has recently been diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis. Although her murmur was detected years ago, I never thought she would need open heart surgery. She’s 68 but acts like she’s 38. No symptoms at all. I’m curious… How common is valve disease and surgery among seniors? Thanks, Heidi”

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I was just reading The Washington Post when I came across an interesting story about aortic valve replacement. In addition to discussing the recent heart valve replacements of Barbara Bush and Robin Williams, the article posted its “Top 5 Facts About Aortic Valve Replacement”.

Tissue Valve Replacement Sewn In Aortic Position

I thought you might like to see some of the highlights from this article. So, here they are:

1. There is not much you can do to prevent or protect against aortic valve failure, which occurs when either the valve hardens or simply wears out, often as a function of age. (Bush was 83 and Williams was 57 at the time of their aortic valve surgeries.)

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