Patent ID: 7229405

Claim:
An assembly for delivering and mounting a cardiac harness on a heart, comprising: an elongate body having a proximal portion and a distal portion, the elongate body having a cavity sized to contain a cardiac harness in a compressed configuration; the cardiac harness having a plurality of elongate sheaths, the sheaths having elongate lumens; the cardiac harness being permanently attached to the sheaths; a plurality of elongate push rods longitudinally movable with respect to the elongate body, each lumen of each sheath slidably receives one of the elongate push rods such that advancement of the push rods in a distal direction moves the cardiac harness from the compressed configuration in the cavity to an expanded configuration outside the cavity; and the push rods are tapered from a larger cross-section at a proximal end to a relatively narrower cross-section at a distal end so that at least a portion of the push rods frictionally slide into corresponding lumens of the sheaths.