Flexible wound assessment system for diabetic patient using android smartphone

Diabetic ulcers represent a significant health issue. Currently, clinicians and nurses mainly base their wound assessment on visual examination of wound size and healing status, while the patients themselves seldom have an opportunity to play an active role. Hence, a more quantitative and cost-effective examination method that enables the patients and their caregivers to take a more active role in daily wound care potentially can accelerate wound healing, save travel cost and reduce healthcare expenses. Considering the prevalence of smart-phones with a high-resolution digital camera, assessing wounds by analysing images of chronic ulcers is an attractive option. We propose a novel wound image analysis system implemented solely on the Android smart-phone. The wound image is captured by the camera on the smart-phone with the assistance of an android App. After that, the smart-phone performs wound segmentation by applying the accelerated mean-shift algorithm. Specifically, the outline of the affected body parts is determined based on skin color, and the wound boundary is found using a simple connected region detection method. Within the wound boundary, the healing status is next assessed based on Red-Yellow-Black color evaluation model. Moreover, the healing status is quantitatively assessed, based on trend analysis of time records for a given patient.