of a heart valve 254 and including a post 256 connected therewith in this embodiment post 256 includes a section 258 extending inwardly toward the center of heart valve 254 this spaces post 256 away from any potentially harmful contact with the inner wall of the heart muscle a series of flexible tensile members or artificial chords 260 262 264 266 extend outwardly from post 258 and include respective grippers 268 270 272 274 grippers 268 270 272 274 may be used as alternatives to directly stitching these artificial chords to the valve leaflets instead these grippers may simply be clamped onto the edges of the valve leaflets to provide the same function as the attachment shown and described with respect to fig3 for example fig1 illustrates another alternative valve support device 280 comprised of a ring shaped support member 282 fixed to a heart valve 284 in any suitable manner and including a post 286 post 286 is preferably rigidly secured to ring shaped support member 282 and extends through the center thereof so as to be configured to extend between the valve leaflets 288 290 post 286 is connected with or integrally includes a chord supporting portion 292 at an opposite end and as with the other embodiments flexible tensile members or artificial chords 294 296 are connected between support portion 292 and valve leaflets 288 290 fig1 illustrates an alternative valve support device 300 comprised.