A Motion-based System to Evaluate Infant Movements Using Real-time Video Analysis

Abstract

This paper proposes a marker-less motion measurement and analysis system for quantitative evaluation of movements of infants. In this system, movements of infants are measured using a single video camera, and then changes of body position and motion in infants are calculated from binarized images, which are extracted using background subtraction or inter-frame difference. Furthermore, eight indices are derived for quantitative evaluation of movements of infants, such as body activity level and amount of body motion. Base on these data, doctors can therefore get an intuitive understanding of the movements of infants without long-period observation. This is considered helpful for supporting diagnosis and detecting of infants' disability or function diseases in the early stages. In this paper, the evaluation indices and features of movement between 14 full-term infants (FTIs) and 11 low-birthweight infants (LBWIs) are compared using the prototype developed. The experimental results show that, with some LBWIs, the upper body moves more than the lower body compared with FTIs, demonstrating that the proposed system can quantitatively evaluate the difference between the movements of FTIs and LBWIs. © 2009 International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering.