PATIENTS
START LIVING FOR TODAY
TALK TO A CCM®
PATIENT AMBASSADOR
If you or a loved one are considering CCM® , you may find it helpful to talk to someone who has gone through a similar experience. CCM Patient Ambassadors are a group of heart failure patients who wish to share firsthand insight into what it’s like to live with heart failure and receive CCM® therapy for better quality of life.
Learn more about Heart Failure
Find an Optimizer® Smart
Mini Physician Near You
The first step in finding relief from your heart failure symptoms is reaching out for help. There are physicians located throughout the United States, ready to help you feel better and live better. Hope is here; take advantage of it by finding a doctor today.
LIFE BEING OPTIMIZED WITH CCM® THERAPY
POTENTIAL ADVERSE EFFECTS
Examples of adverse effects that may occur as the result of the surgical procedure are listed below in the order of their clinical severity:
- Death
- Arrhythmias (brady- or tachyarrhythmias including fibrillation)
- Stroke or TIA (“transient ischemic attack”)
- Respiratory/ventilatory failure
- RA/RV perforation
- Hemorrhage
- Infection
- Pleura or pericardial effusion
- Pneumothorax
Examples of additional adverse effects potentially occurring secondary to CCM™ signal delivery are listed in the table below in the order of their clinical severity:
- Abnormal cardiac function
- Atrial and Ventricular Tachyarrhythmias
- Atrial and Ventricular Bradyarrhythmias
- Worsening heart failure
- Myocardial tissue damage
- Chest pain
Start Living With Chronic Heart Failure Better With CCM® Therapy
Struggling through heart failure often feels impossible. You can’t do the things you enjoy when simply getting out of bed leaves you winded and exhausted. Even though your medication is keeping you alive, you’re not truly living.
Hope is here. You can start living with CHF better with CCM® (Cardiac Contractility Modulation) therapy, powered by the Optimizer® Smart Mini system.
Understanding the Symptoms of Heart Failure
Chronic heart failure (CHF) occurs when your heart is unable to pump sufficient blood to meet the needs of your body due to weakened heart pumping strength. Measured by ejection fraction (EF), a normal EF is greater than 55%. In patients with CHF, this value can fall to 25%, or even lower.
Heart failure is often caused by damage to the heart muscle due to a heart attack, untreated coronary artery disease, or persistent high blood pressure. The symptoms of heart failure include, but are not limited to:
- Dyspnea or shortness of breath during movement or while resting
- Fatigue and general weakness
- Edema or swelling in your legs, ankles, and feet
- Fast or irregular heartbeat
- Swelling of your abdomen
- Nausea and lack of appetite
- Chest pain
You may also notice that tasks such as grocery shopping or climbing stairs are increasingly difficult for you due to fatigue and shortness of breath.
What to Expect From the Optimizer® Smart Mini System
The Optimizer® Smart Mini System includes an implantable stimulation device (similar in size to a pacemaker) and an external charging station. The device is implanted in a small pocket under the skin of the upper chest, along with commercially available pacemaker leads that are placed in the heart’s right ventricular septum, while the patient is under light sedation. After implantation, the physician custom-programs and activates the device for the patient. The Optimizer® Smart Mini then begins sending electrical pulses to the heart muscle for a total of 5 to 7 hours a day, in one-hour treatments separated by regular intervals. The patient charges the device one hour per week using the external charger. The Optimizer® Smart Mini device is expected to last at least 20 years without replacement.
The implant procedure doesn’t require open-heart surgery and most patients can return home soon after the implant is complete. Plus, most patients are able to return to everyday activities shortly after the procedure.
The Optimizer® Smart Mini: Improving Your Day-to-Day Life
The Optimizer® Smart Mini is designed to increase the strength of your heart’s contractions. The therapy you’ll receive may diminish the symptoms of CHF, allowing you to take your life back. Walking, climbing steps, and playing with your kids or grandkids could become easier due to the reduction in the need to rest after performing simple activities.
This device has already improved the lives of thousands of patients struggling with the symptoms of CHF.
How Do We Treat Chronic Heart Failure?
If you are diagnosed with heart failure, you’ll need lifelong management for the condition. Although treatment of CHF depends on its cause, it’s typically treated with drugs or implanted devices such as implantable cardiac defibrillators or cardiac resynchronization devices.
These treatments don’t always result in an improvement of symptoms for all patients. That’s why we’ve developed Optimizer® Smart Mini; to help you find relief even when traditional approaches prove minimally effective, and other treatments aren’t yet applicable.
How Does the Optimizer® Smart Mini Work?
The Optimizer® Smart Mini is a minimally invasive implantable device that delivers precisely timed electrical pulses to the heart cells during a special period of the beating cycle (called the absolute refractory period, or the period just after the heart contracts). In doing so, it strengthens and helps the heart contract more forcibly, thereby delivering more blood and oxygen to the body. Studies have shown CCM® therapy to improve 6-minute hall walk distance, quality of life and functional status among patients who are candidates for the device.
