Identical 80-Year-Old Twin Brothers Living Free Of Heart Failure Symptoms With Revolutionary Devices At Their Sides Wy (NAPSA)—One of the most common reasons people 65 and older go to the hospital is heart failure. Jim Olsen is just one of the approximately 5.7 million LL Americans who are living with heart failure today, and his constant readmissions to the hospital did nothingto alleviate his symptoms and fear as he felt progressively worse. Were it not for his twin brother John, Jim might not be here today. John is also a heart failure sufferer, but while the brothers are identical in looks and even nearly identical in their troubling heart issues, the care each brother received as his heart failure got progressively worse was as different as fire and ice. Since John’s diagnosis of heart failure in 1999, he and his cardiologist adequately managed his symptoms for more than a decade, but when they became progressively worse, his cardiologist knew it was time for more-advanced care and referred him on to the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital. The Shands team was working with more-innovative technologies to help heart failure patients, and for folks like John who are too old to be considered for a transplant, the referral became instrumental in his longterm prognosis. John learned about the HeartMate ITI Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD), a revolutionary medical device that could help his weakened heart to more efficiently pump the blood it was no longer able to adequately pump on its own. “T was extremely lucky that my cardiologist knew I needed something more and waswilling to give me that opportunity. He sent me to the right place at the right time,” said John Olsen. Within a year and a half of his cardiologist’s referral, John received the HeartMate II, and A revolutionary heart assist device that has been implanted in more than 20,000 people worldwide to help alleviate and in some cases reverse the symptoms associated with advanced heart failure has been implanted in identical twin brothers in Florida. shortly thereafter, was enjoying more energy and life than he had in years. Unfortunately, his brother Jim, who was also diagnosed with heart failure around the same time as John and started exhibiting worsening symptoms shortly after John did, was not referred for more-advanced treatment. Like so many other heart failure sufferers, Jim instead went through a long and harrowing experience of consistent admissions and readmissions into various hospitals throughout Florida for nearly three years. “I was scared and frustrated, but John quickly inspired me by both how well he felt and how much energy he had,” recalls Jim Olsen. “The HeartMate II was working and my brother and I quickly went to work to get me into Shandsas well.” Today, they are again identical in every way, including their HeartMate II LVADs, which has given each the gift of more timeto celebrate life with family and friends. To learn more about HeartMate II LVAD advanced therapy for heart failure sufferers, visit www.Heart MatelII.com/empower.
