Welcome to Libre VAD. We are designing a free/libre/open source ventricular assist device (VAD) to help patients with a failing heart. According to the World Health Organization, ischaemic heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world, claiming more than 9 million lives in 2016.1
A VAD reduces the load on the heart by pumping blood and improving circulation.
It can be used as a bridge to transplantation which means it keeps patients alive and improves their condition while waiting on the long list of heart transplants.
In some cases it helps the heart to recover and eliminates the need for the transplantation. It can also be a destination therapy which means it will improve and increase the lifespan of patients that are not eligible for a transplant.
Libre VAD is a collaborative and evolving project. It contains errors, inaccuracies and imperfections. There is absolutely no assurance that any statement contained or cited in an article touching on medical matters is true, correct, precise, or up-to-date. The overwhelming majority of such articles are written, in part or in whole, by nonprofessionals. Even if a statement made about a medical matter is accurate, it may not apply to you or your symptoms.
The medical information provided on Libre VAD is, at best, of a general nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a medical professional (for instance, a qualified doctor/physician, nurse, pharmacist/chemist, and so on).
None of the individual contributors, system operators, developers, sponsors of Libre VAD nor anyone else connected to Libre VAD can take any responsibility for the results or consequences of any attempt to use or adopt any of the information presented on the Libre VAD website or related websites.
Nothing on the Libre VAD website or related websites should be construed as an attempt to offer or render a medical opinion or otherwise engage in the practice of medicine. For more information please take a look at the License section.
This is a libre/open source project. It is hosted on GitLab and any contribution is welcomed and highly appreciated.
This book is a work in progress and will change frequently. always check that you have the latest release.
[TODO] Add detailed information on how to commit to a git repository for beginners.
The pdf, webpages and ebooks are produced with scripts around pandoc and other free software. see the gitlab page.
Some parts of the Disclaimer section are taken from wikipedia’s medical disclaimer page.
Except As Otherwise Noted, This Work Is Licensed Under A Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To View A Copy Of This License, Visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Code Samples Are Licensed Under The GNU General Public License v3.0. To View A Copy Of This License, Visit: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
World Health Organization, “The Top 10 Causes of Death” (https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death, May 2018).↩
Except As Otherwise Noted, The Content Of This Page Is Licensed Under The CC-BY-SA 4.0 License And Code Samples Are Licensed Under The GPL 3.0 License. For Details, See License.