Evaluation of facial palsy by measuring the amount of movement of the reference points.

几种计算机化的方法，如标记法、减法和利用光流的方法，已被提出用于评估面神经麻痹的程度。本研究的目的是通过改进几年前我们最初开发的轮廓提取方法，提出另一种计算机化的方法。该软件是半自动工作的，虽然用户界面还需要进一步改进，但已经可以使用。我们的方法首先计算四种面部运动（皱额头、闭紧眼睛、咧嘴笑和吹口哨）中预定义点的位移向量量。然后比较两边对应点的移动量。利用均匀的HVC颜色空间（轮廓提取法）定义唇部和眼睑的轮廓，然后考虑面部肌肉的解剖结构来确定这些点的位置。本研究对7例正常人和23例单侧面神经麻痹患者的面部运动进行了评价。四种面部运动（咧嘴笑、轻微闭眼、吹口哨、皱额头）的结果表明，该方法的结果与40分制的得分有很好的相关性。此外，我们的方法能够更好地评估面神经痉挛的恢复过程，比40分量表更详细。我们还提出了面神经程度的综合评价指标。

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.