Analysis of Magnetotherapy Device-Induced Fields Using Cylindrical Human Body Model

Abstract

This paper deals with the analysis of induced current density and the induced electric field in the body of a human exposed to the magnetic field of a magnetotherapy device. As the displacement currents at extremely low frequencies can be neglected, the biological tissues can thus be considered a weakly conducting medium, facilitating the use of a quasi-static eddy current approximation. The formulation is based on the surface integral equation for the unknown surface charges, whose numerical solution is obtained using the method of moments technique. A simplified model of the human body is utilized to examine various scenarios during the magnetotherapy procedure. The numerical results for the induced current density and the induced electric field are obtained using the proposed model. The analyses of various stimulating coil parameters, human body model parameters, and a displacement of the magnetotherapy coil were carried out to assess their effects on the induced current density. The results suggest that selection of the stimulating coil should be matched based on the size of the human body, but also that the position and orientation of the coil with respect to the body surface will result in different distributions of the induced fields. The results of this study could be useful for medical professionals by showing the importance of various magnetotherapy coil parameters for preparation of various treatment scenarios.

Keywords

• magnetotherapy
• integral equation formulation
• induced current density
• induced electric field
• biomedical application