Abstract
It has been reported that magnetic stimulation effectively eliminates urinary incontinence. However, this type of therapy has not been established as a practical treatment for urinary incontinence because of poor power conversion efficiency and the leakage of current to regions other than that targeted for stimulation. It is therefore necessary to develop magnetic stimulators that can stimulate the sphincter muscles and peripheral nerves more efficiently, and are more convenient than those presently available. By using a large-diameter coil, the magnetic stimulation method offers a larger current distribution over a wider area of the target region than the electrical stimulation method, and the placement of the coil can be relatively easily changed to obtain better therapeutic results. Utilizing a computer simulation model of the female abdomen, we attempted to simulate the distribution of the induced current density on the basis of biological tissue conductivity. Finally, we determined which method of stimulation is the most efficient by varying the stimulator coil location and size. A genetic algorithm (GA) was used for optimization.
