Use of facial asymmetry in better diagnosis and treatment of Plagiocephaly

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There is an increasing tendency for young children to develop a medical condition (known a Plagiocephaly), which can result in deformity of their heads and distortions of the faces. It is possible to help remove the condition by having the child wear a carefully designed helmet that encourages the skull to grow in a direction that will tend to minimize the deformity. In order to manufacture such a helmet, the doctors involved need to have an accurate model of the shape of the child?s head. At the moment this model is made by making a plaster cast of the head; which is a procedure that that can be quite upsetting for the child, or which necessitates the use of a general anesthetic, with all the associated risks which that entails. The proposed project aims to overcome this problem by using cameras and lights in order to quickly and accurately measure the child?s head and face. As well as enabling manufacture of the helmet, this data will help with finding a link between the deformity of the head and the distortions of the face. This will help to show whether looking closely at the face could be way to diagnose Plagiocephaly. It will also provide a method for monitoring and evaluating the success of the helmet treatment.