The first total artificial heart implant in New England was performed last February on a 66-year-old retired high school teacher and track and field coach from Holbrook, who was diagnosed last year with a rapidly deteriorating condition that would have caused total heart failure.

The artificial heart that James Carelli received at Brigham and Women’s Hospital is intended as a bridge to a human heart transplant. Doctors diagnosed Carelli with cardiac senile amyloidosis, and they determined that his only option for survival was to receive the artificial heart while he awaits the transplant. He is on the waiting list for a heart transplant, as well as a kidney transplant.