Russian scientists began to predict Alzheimer’s disease with a video camera

The program for the early diagnosis of neurological disorders based on the facial recognition system according to the type that phones are now equipped with was developed by young scientists of the First MGMU. Sechenov.

Ilya Kalinin, a student of the Faculty of Medicine of the Future Sechenov Institute and the author of the program, said that the essence of the study is to recognize a person’s neurological diseases at an early stage – when the pathological process in the body is already running, but there are no obvious symptoms. To do this, you only need to capture the patient’s face on the video, and the program, scanning it by points, will determine whether the person is healthy or at risk and requires additional examination.

Such brain diseases are most often seen in the elderly people. The most famous of them are Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, explains the young scientist. – But few people know that the first sign, for example, with Parkinson is when a person reduces the amplitude of the movements of the lips, and the mouth turns slightly stiff. Of course, such stiffness of the lips may well be a common physiological feature. And our diagnostics will help determine if this is so.

At present, scientists are conducting research – at the first stage, they compare facial expressions of healthy people and patients (with an established diagnosis). Measure the speed of movements of the muscles on the face, their amplitude, the distance between the points, their symmetry. At the second stage, according to Kalinin, it is supposed to additionally examine people who, according to all these indicators, did not fall into either the “healthy” category or the “sick” category. And after another test method.

It is clear that now there are various methods of diagnosing neurological diseases, but they are all quite expensive and most require additional costs in the form of special equipment, reagents, and other things, Kalinin explained. – Our method is distinguished by the fact that it requires almost no costs, except for the purchase of a video camera and the presence of a computer. At the same time, not only a doctor can take a picture, but any person without a medical education. We expect that this method will be widely implemented during the clinical examination of the population in polyclinics.