Per Reinhall, Ph.D.
Department of Mechanical Engineering
"Improving the Function of the Sick Human Heart through Engineering"


ABSTRACT

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States claiming over 900,000 lives per year. In addition to the cost in terms of lost lives, the dollar cost of cardiovascular diseases in 2004 is estimated to be $314 billion, according to the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

By understanding the dynamics and structure of the heart it is possible to engineer devices and procedures that can dramatically improve the quality of life of patients with congestive heart failure and arrhythmias.  This talk will present our work in the area of heart valve dynamics and arrhythmias.
 
The dynamics of the heart valves result from the synergy of heart geometry, local blood flow and tissue integrity. By constructing coupled fluid-structure computational models of the mitral and aortic valves we are able to aid in the development of new surgical valve repair techniques.

The onset of a seemingly chaotic heart dynamics called ventricular fibrillation can lead to a rapid decrease in blood pressure and death.  The ability to predict and screen for this arrhythmia is being developed in our laboratory. Results will be presented to show that nonlinear dynamics may provide insights into differences in cardiac behavior and ultimately predict mortality where traditional techniques of data analysis have shown not to be sufficient.