Last updated: September 3, 2026
These terms cover your use of the LVADStrong website. By using the site you agree to them.
What this site is
LVADStrong is a nonprofit offering education, community, and peer support to LVAD patients, caregivers, and healthcare workers. Everything on this site is provided free.
What this site is not
This site does not provide medical advice. Nothing here — not the LVAD Guide, not the articles, not the patient stories, not anything a mentor says — is a substitute for advice from your VAD team, your cardiologist, or any other qualified clinician.
Every LVAD journey is different. Device models differ, medications differ, and what was right for one person may be wrong or dangerous for you. Read what we publish as lived experience and general education, then talk to your care team before acting on any of it.
Never delay or disregard medical advice because of something you read here. If you think you are having a medical emergency, call 911 immediately.
Peer support and mentoring
Our mentors are volunteers who have lived through an LVAD, either as a patient or as a caregiver. They are not clinicians, and they are not acting as your healthcare provider. They share experience, not treatment plans.
We make an effort to match people thoughtfully, but we cannot guarantee any particular outcome from a mentoring relationship, nor can we supervise individual conversations.
Stories and personal accounts
Stories on this site are published with the permission of the people who lived them. They describe individual experiences and outcomes. Your experience may be entirely different. Nothing in a story should be read as a prediction of how things will go for you.
Comments and submissions
If you post a comment or send us your story, please:
- Be kind. People share a great deal of themselves here, often at a hard time.
- Do not give medical advice to other users.
- Do not post anything false, abusive, harassing, or unlawful.
- Do not post other people’s private information, including anyone’s health details but your own.
- Do not use the site to advertise or solicit.
Comments are screened automatically for spam and then reviewed by a person before publication. Automatic screening occasionally catches a legitimate comment; if yours does not appear within a few days, email us. We may edit or decline to publish anything, at our discretion, and we do not owe an explanation. This is moderation for the sake of a safe community, not censorship of disagreement.
By submitting a comment or a story, you give us permission to publish and share it on this site and in our materials. You keep ownership of your words. Ask us and we will take your contribution down.
Donations
Donations are processed by Givebutter. LVADStrong is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit and donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. You will receive a receipt for your records.
Donations are generally non-refundable. If you have made a mistake — a wrong amount, a duplicate — contact us and we will do our best to put it right.
Our content
The text, images, and design of this site belong to LVADStrong or are used with permission. You are welcome to share links to our pages, and to print or share our educational material for personal, non-commercial use, including giving it to another patient or to your care team.
Please ask before republishing our content commercially or presenting it as your own.
Keeping the site secure
We run security and anti-spam software that inspects incoming traffic and form submissions. It may block a request that looks automated, and occasionally it gets that wrong and blocks a real person.
If you find yourself locked out or unable to submit a form, that is a mistake on our side, not an accusation. Email info@lvadstrong.org and we will sort it out.
You agree not to attempt to break into, overload, scrape wholesale, or otherwise interfere with the site.
Links to other sites
We link to hospitals, device manufacturers, and other organisations where we think it helps. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content or their privacy practices.
No warranty
We work hard to keep this site accurate and current, but we provide it “as is”. We do not warrant that the information is complete, that the site will always be available, or that it will be free of errors.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, LVADStrong and its board, volunteers, and staff are not liable for any damages arising from your use of this site or reliance on its content.
Nothing in these terms limits liability where the law does not allow it to be limited.
Changes
We may update these terms. The date at the top shows when they last changed. Continuing to use the site means you accept the current version.
Contact
Email: info@lvadstrong.org