Infrared Thermography for Real-Time Assessment of the Effectiveness of Scoliosis Braces
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Background
3. Proposal
- The ROIs preparation module consists of three blocks.The first block, named Images Acquisition, captures the thermal and corresponding RGB images from the dorsum of the patient, immediately after removing the brace. It is noteworthy that the patient’s dorsum remains uncovered during this stage. To ensure that the bracing effect remains visible, it is recommended to wait no more than one minute between the patient removing the scoliosis corset and the start of image capturing. In fact, the duration of the corset’s pressure effect on skin temperature variation after its removal can be influenced by several factors, such as the duration of brace usage, the intensity of the applied pressure, the patient’s metabolism, sweating, and the ambient temperature. This effect may gradually dissipate within a few minutes or persist for an extended period ranging from several minutes to tens of minutes [49,50]. Hence, a waiting time of less than one minute can be considered a time to ensure adequate stability in the short term.In the second block, referred to as the Selection of the ROIs, the orthopedic specialist selects on his/her computer (with the help of cursors) two ROIs on the acquired RGB image: the first ROI corresponds to the area in which the thrust is exerted by the brace, whereas the second ROI is selected symmetrically to the first ROI with respect to the backbone. It should be pointed out that this selection is guided by the patient’s clinical history: the orthopedic specialist has access to the patient’s radiography, has knowledge of the diagnosis, knows the type of corset worn, and has the related prescription. As a result, he/she possesses the necessary information to identify the specific region of the back where the corset needs to exert its effect. Nevertheless, to avoid confirmation bias, the selection of the ROIs is not performed directly on the thermal image but rather on the RGB one.Finally, the third block (Mapping) is responsible for mapping the selected regions from the RGB image onto the thermal image.
- The ROIs processing module is divided into three blocks.The first block, named Grayscale Conversion, handles the conversion of the thermal ROIs from the RGB color space to grayscale, where white is associated with the maximum temperature value and black is associated with the minimum temperature value. Consequently, each ROI undergoes a transformation from three dimensions (red, green, and blue channels) to one dimension (grayscale) to save computational effort.Then, in the ROIs Partitioning block, each ROI converted to grayscale is divided by performing both horizontal and vertical slicing. As a result, each ROI is segmented into subregions, where N represents the number of horizontal slices and M represents the number of vertical slices.In this way, the last block, called Partitions Averaging, performs an average assessment on each of the subregions within the partitioned grayscale ROIs. This process generates two vectors, each with dimensions [, 1], corresponding to the averaged values of the temperature of each ROI subregion.
- These two vectors are compared through the Decision module.In particular, a Statistical Test is performed between the two vectors to evaluate whether there is a statistically significant difference between the means of the two groups represented by the vectors. The output of this test is the p-value, which indicates the probability of obtaining test results at least as extreme as the result actually observed, under the assumption that the null hypothesis is correct. In this context, the null hypothesis implies no significant difference between the two vectors, suggesting inadequate scoliosis brace pressure. For this reason, the lower the p-value, the lower the probability of erroneously rejecting the null hypothesis. The utilization of a statistically derived score affords independence from absolute temperature (and consequently, pressure) values measured on the patient’s back, which significantly vary among different patients and corsets, given the anatomical distinctions inherent to each individual. As a matter of fact, typical pressure values range from 7 to 10 kPa [51], but these values are subject to significant variability, both inter-subject and intra-subject.The resulting p-value is compared with a Threshold to associate it with an Output that can indicate whether the scoliosis brace is functioning adequately. More specifically, if the obtained p-value is found to be lower than the threshold value, and if the average temperature of ROI #1 (region where brace pressure is assumed to be) is greater than that of ROI #2 (region where brace pressure is not assumed to be), the pressure of the scoliosis corset is indicated as adequate. Conversely, if the p-value exceeds the threshold value, it is indicated as inadequate. The identification of this threshold can follow an a priori model, which is based on prior information, or models based on learning from newly acquired data.
4. Experimental Validation
4.1. Experimental Setup
4.2. Experimental Study
4.3. Performance Evaluation
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Metric | Set #1 | Set #2 | Set #3 | Set #4 | Set #5 | Set #6 | Set #7 | Set #8 | Set #9 | Set #10 | Mean |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A (%) | 70.0 | 55.0 | 65.0 | 75.0 | 65.0 | 70.0 | 60.0 | 65.0 | 65.0 | 65.0 | 65.5 |
u (%) | 10.5 | 11.4 | 10.9 | 9.9 | 10.9 | 10.5 | 11.2 | 10.9 | 10.9 | 10.9 | 3.4 |
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Angrisani, L.; De Benedetto, E.; Duraccio, L.; Lo Regio, F.; Ruggiero, R.; Tedesco, A. Infrared Thermography for Real-Time Assessment of the Effectiveness of Scoliosis Braces. Sensors 2023, 23, 8037. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23198037
Angrisani L, De Benedetto E, Duraccio L, Lo Regio F, Ruggiero R, Tedesco A. Infrared Thermography for Real-Time Assessment of the Effectiveness of Scoliosis Braces. Sensors. 2023; 23(19):8037. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23198037
Chicago/Turabian StyleAngrisani, Leopoldo, Egidio De Benedetto, Luigi Duraccio, Fabrizio Lo Regio, Roberto Ruggiero, and Annarita Tedesco. 2023. "Infrared Thermography for Real-Time Assessment of the Effectiveness of Scoliosis Braces" Sensors 23, no. 19: 8037. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23198037