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Patients with diastolic heart failure who have been losing hope to be treated have now a new option. A new research has found a new non-surgical, medical device to treat the heart failure.

Janet Wickham, 69, lost both her mother and grandmother to diastolic heart failure. She was recently diagnosed with the same disease.

A patient with diastolic heart failure has a heart that normally beats but does not relax in between beats. It causes the blood to back up and builds pressure in the patient's lungs, Fox News reported.  

"You can't breathe you can't move, you just can't function. You don't leave the house," said Wickham.

Wickham was the first to enroll in a new research The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center that offers a tiny implant to treat her diastolic heart failure.

"Treatment for diastolic heart failure has been very disappointing over the last three decades," said Dr. Rami Kahwash, a cardiologist and the study's lead researcher at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. "We tried old tricks, the one we use in the treatment of systolic heart failure and actually, unfortunately, none of them worked."

The procedure is called the IASD System. It is an investigational, non-surgical medical device created to lessen the pressure in the heart. The implant allows blood to properly flow between the right and the left atrium, which is the heart's upper chamber, alleviating the pressure in the left atrium that causes diastolic heart failure's symptoms.

An interventional cardiologist will place the IASD System using the standard non-surgical procedure. A small opening will be punched in the heart wall between the right and left atrium using a catheter. This will allow the placement of the implant.

The implant will keep an opening that allows blood to flow from the high pressure left side to the low-pressure right side, reducing the pressure in the left atrium.

"It's just like when you have a traffic jam, and instead of backing up all the way back to the lung, you create kind of a detour that kind of takes you around the lung," said Kahwash.

However, the implant is still in the trial period. Among the 40 patients where Wickham belongs, only half of the participants will be equipped with the implant. The patients will not know whether they were treated until the trial for the new implant is completely done.

Wickham is thankful that the researchers are exploring new ways to treat the disease, even though she knows that the implant might not fit her.

"I'm wanting to feel better. And what will be will be, but if there's a chance of something I want to try it," Wickham said.