Detection of raynaud’s phenomenon by thermographic testing for finger thermoregulation

Abstract

Raynaud phenomenon is a disorder of blood flow in the fingers and generally said to be a vasospastic response to cold or emotional stress due to blockage in constricted digital artery. However some cases triggered by excessive use of the hands are also reported besides the idiopathic vasospasms. During the attack, the vessels temporarily narrow down limiting the blood supply to fingers thus the small arteries may thicken overtime. The severe episodes result in numbness, color change of the affected fingers, eventually gangrene. Therefore in this paper we present a detection methodology for early diagnosis to prevent the reduced blood flow by thermal image processing based on thermoregulation in fingers. Several experiments were conducted by altering the conditions to understand the differences between the states after cooling process. The first results are greatly encouraging that reduced blood flow is mathematically identified by grid histogram matrices for red-channel conversion of higher radiation.