FEM evaluation of the novel cardiac defibrillation electrode placement

Defibrillation is used to treat patients with certain heart malfunctions. Different external defibrillation systems use two electrodes to deliver current to heart to regain normal beat. Successful defibrillation is determined by the amount of current delivered to myocardium, the amplitude of which depends on the impedance seen by defibrillator. Therefore, in order to gain higher current in the heart, this impedance should be minimized. All attempts to reduce this impedance is focused on decreasing external components like pad-skin impedance. But, in this paper the goal is the reduction of the internal component which is the impedance of the current path in torso by adding additional electrode according to parallel impedance rule of electric circuit theory. The new proposed defibrillation electrode placement is analyzed using developed electric circuit and Finite Element Method models.