Objective facial paralysis grading based on P-face and eigenflow
To provide physicians with an objective and quantitative measurement of single-sided facial paralysis, the paper presents a computer-based approach that is different from the nine existing, subjective and hand-performed international scales, such as House-Brackman. For voluntary expressions of a patient, this approach used P-face, which stems from D-face, to measure the asymmetry between two sides of the face and used eigenflow to measure the expression variations between the patient and normal subjects. The results from P-face and eigenflow were then combined by the support vector machine produce to P-degree. A study of 25 subjects revealed that P-degree could differentiate paralysis states (P-degree greater than or equal to 0) and normal states (P-degree < 0), with the ability to grade facial paralysis automatically. Moreover, the P-face of specific facial areas can be used in the supervision of the rehabilitation process.
facial paralysis p-face eigenflow support vector machine facial expression optical flow