Cardiac assist device

An apparatus to assist a patient's heart comprising:

• a main pump adapted to be mounted to a patient's chest wall and including a pump chamber containing a first fluid, the main pump having means for generating a compression stroke and an expansion stroke;
• an atrial pump adapted to be attached to an atrium of the patient's heart, said atrial pump including an atrial chamber containing a second fluid and means for exerting a pressure on the atrium;
• and
• means for coupling the atrial pump to the main pump so that the exerting means exerts said pressure on the atrium when the generating means generates the compression stroke to thereby pump blood towards the patient's pulmonary artery.

An apparatus to assist a patient's heart comprising:

• a main pump adapted to be mounted to a patient's chest wall and including a pump chamber containing a first fluid, the main pump having means for generating a compression stroke and an expansion stroke to increase and decrease, respectively, a pressure force on said first fluid;
• an atrial pump adapted to be attached to an atrium of the patient's heart, said atrial pump including an atrial chamber containing a second fluid;
• means for transmitting said pressure force on said first fluid in said pump chamber to said second fluid in said atrial chamber, said transmitting means including a conduit fluidly coupled to said atrial chamber;
• and
• a bypass fluidly coupled to said conduit and adapted to surround the patient's inferior vena cava;
• whereby the generating means generates said compression stroke to apply said increased pressure force on said first fluid which is transmitted by said transmitting means to said second fluid to both force said second fluid in the bypass to restrict the patient's inferior vena cava and said second fluid in said atrial chamber to compress the atrium to thereby pump blood towards the patient's pulmonary artery.