Calculation of the current and temperature distribution in the human torso during defibrillation

The present paper focuses on the simulation of external defibrillation using an efficient 3-D model. In order to do so, a script was developed to handle a model of the human torso, created in Microwaves Lab´s previous work, through the implementation of both the finite element (FEM) and the finite difference time domain (FDTD) methods. The parameters under investigation are the current and temperature distribution inside the human torso, along with the double goal of optimizing the current distribution around the heart as to excite as much of the cardiac muscle as possible and obtaining the temperature distribution as to establish whether or not tissue damage is likely to occur.