How does it work?
The heart pants were developed especially for people with heart failure. Cuffs are wrapped around the patient’s lower and upper thighs and buttocks, which are filled with air intermittently and transport the blood from the veins and arteries of the legs in the direction of the heart.
Counterpulsation and natural bypasses
The resulting effect is called counterpulsation and leads to a redistribution of blood volume and an acceleration of blood flow – similar to a forest run. The advantage here, however, is that the heart rate does not increase significantly, so the heart is unloaded and still receives the necessary impulses to develop natural bypasses.
1. Blood flows through larger arteries connected by small bridging vessels (collaterals) where blood flow is very low.
2. When a larger artery narrows, blood is increasingly directed through the collaterals: this increased blood flow causes the collaterals to transform into large arteries.
3. The new arteries bridge the constriction and supply the tissue with sufficient blood again.
Patented procedure developed at the Charité
Recognizable by the HERZHOSE® logo
With the Vascular Tachometer® to individual therapy
Even in earlier studies, it was assumed that the main effect of counterpulsation was the volume shift of blood from the legs toward the heart.
However, it was mistakenly thought that the more blood that could be mobilized, the greater the effect. In the past, patients were often treated with very high pressure (also known as EECP) for long periods of time without personalization, which in many cases led to numerous side effects – and in the case of diseases such as window shattering, could even lead to a worsening of the clinical picture.
New research data
have now demonstrated for the first time that it is not the pressure ratios in the cuffs that are decisive, but the impulse generated by the inflation of the cuffs. Based on this know-how, the so-called Vascular Tachometer® was developed* at the Charité Berlin in cooperation with the Max Delbrück Center. It graphically represents the blood pulse and serves as a calculation basis for the setting of personalized cardiosis therapy. In this way, it is now possible for the first time to tailor the treatment to the individual patient and to customize the heart trousers, so to speak.
*patented and funded under the name “CARDIO ACCEL” by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.