| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,500,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2002: ¥2,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Several computerized methods, such as the marker method, subtraction method, and a method utilizing the optical flow, have been proposed to assess the degree of facial nerve palsy. The purpose of the present study was to propose another computerized method by improving the countour extraction method which we originally developed several years ago. The software, which works semiautomatically, has already been available, although further improvements of user interface is required.
Our method first calculates the amount of displacement vectors for pre-defined points during four kinds of facial movements (wrinkling the forehead, tight eye closure, grinning, and whistling). Then the amount of the movements for corresponding points for either side was compared. The location of those points were determined by defining the contour of the lips and eyelids using the uniform HVC color space (contour extraction method) and then taking into consideration the anatomy of facial muscles.
The present study evaluated the facial movements in 7 normal subjects and 23 patients with unilateral facial nerve palsy. The results for four facial movments (grinning, light eye closure, whistling, wrinkling the forehead) in those patients demonstrated that the results of this method showed a good correlation with the score on the 40-point scale. In addition, our method was able to assess the recovery process of facial nerve pasly better than the 40-point scale in more detail. We also proposed the index for overall evaluation of the degree facial nerve.
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