FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Although progress has been made in the treatment of many forms of heart disease, heart failure remains a growing problem in the U.S., but a new device is helping doctors closely monitor these high risk patients, like 45-year-old Abner McDuffie.
He didn’t know he had the condition until he was hospitalized for a stroke.
“My heart wasn’t beating at the proper pace that it was beating at the time,” McDuffie said.
Broward Health cardiologist Dr. Yordanka Reyna felt McDuffie was a good candidate for an implantable monitoring device called CardioMEMs, which can slow the progression of heart failure by identifying problems earlier.
“What it will do is that it allows me to monitor the patient from a distance and adjust medications and intervene to prevent them from getting hospitalized from heart failure or having decompensations of heart failure, which are usually manifested by shortness of breath, leg swelling and just in general congestion of the body with fluid,” Reyna said.
When McDuffie lays down on a special pillow, the device transmits information to his doctors about changes in pulmonary artery pressure, which is an indication of fluid retention in the lungs due to worsening heart failure.
“So it gives me at least a 30-day warning ahead of, knowing ahead of time what is going to happen if we don’t intervene,” Reyna said.
McDuffie is thankful to have technology on his side.
“It makes me feel safe and secure,” he said.
The CardioMEMs device is implanted during a minimally invasive procedure, and because it’s a wireless sensor that doesn’t require a battery, it doesn’t impact daily life.