An innovative framework for rare neurodegenerative diseases analysis

In this paper we introduce a new non-invasive, inexpensive and functional tool in order to support physicians and specialists during visits of patients who are affected by neurodegenerative diseases, as well as Huntington´s one. The proposed framework succeeds in automatizing International Affective Picture System (IAPS) test which consists of two phases: the first allows to show a sub set of pictures stored in a database, while the second takes note of Self Assessment Manikin scale evaluations; during the session, the patient´s face is captured by a webcam for extracting emotional features for each frame. This framework, therefore, saves data in a SQLite Database. The proposed framework provides a medical efficient evaluation to evaluate the emotional impairment in these patients by comparing the results given by facial expressions analyzer and those given by the leading layer themselves in a long observation period.