Objective assessment of facial paralysis using infrared thermography and formal concept analysis

• Published in: Guang pu xue yu guang pu fen xi Vol. 34; no. 4; p. 932
• Main Authors: Liu, Xu-Long, Hong, Wen-Xue, Liu, Jie-Min
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Chinese
• Published: China 01.04.2014
• Subjects: Facial Nerve - physiopathology; Facial Paralysis - diagnosis; Humans; Thermography - methods
• ISSN: 1000-0593
• DOI: 10.3964/j.issn.1000-0593(2014)04-0932-05

This paper presented a novel approach to objective assessment of facial nerve paralysis based on infrared thermography and formal concept analysis. Sixty five patients with facial nerve paralysis on one side were included in the study. The facial temperature distribution images of these 65 patients were captured by infrared thermography every five days during one-month period. First, the facial thermal images were pre-processed to identify six potential regions of bilateral symmetry by using image segmentation techniques. Then, the temperature differences on the left and right sides of the facial regions were extracted and analyzed. Finally, the authors explored the relationships between the statistical averages of those temperature differences and the House-Brackmann score for objective assessment degree of nerve damage in a facial nerve paralysis by using formal concept analysis. The results showed that the facial temperature distribution of patients with facial nerve paralysis exhibited a contralateral asy