Soft robotic sleeve ‘hugs’ failing hearts

Device mimics natural movements of the organ

Scientists at Harvard University in the US are close to perfecting a robotic sleeve that will encase weak and diseased hearts and gently squeeze to keep them pumping. So far it’s been tested only in animals, improving blood flow in pigs. But this “soft robotic” device mimics the natural movements of a beating heart, a strategy for nextgeneration treatments of deadly heart failure.

If it works — and the team is confident it will — it can offer a new alternative to heart transplants or maybe even aid in recovery.

The soft robotic sleeve alternately compresses, twists and relaxes in synchrony with the heart tissue underneath.

“You can customise the function of the assist device to meet the individual needs of that heart,” said Dr Frank Pigula, a cardiac surgeon who, while at Boston Children’s Hospital, took the idea to Harvard colleagues developing soft robotics. More than 41 million people worldwide suffer heart failure, a number growing as the population ages. A heart left damaged by a heart attack, high blood pressure or other conditions becomes progressively weaker and unable to pump properly. Meanwhile, scientists have also predicted that they will be able to use every individual’s unique heart rhythm to set a password on computer devices that can’t be hacked. Researchers from Binghamton University have used the heart’s electrical pattern as an encryption key for electronic records.

The cost and complexity of traditional encryption solutions prevent them being directly applied to telemedicine or mobile health care.