Digital processing techniques for the assessment of pain with infrared thermal imaging

The assessment of pain is a difficult topic that may be facilitated by the quantification of some of the phenomena usually involved in the sensation of pain, such as thermal abnormalities. Digital thermal imaging is a technique that records the skin temperature distribution of the body and thus can provide some insight in thermal dysfunction associated with pain. In this paper, we propose several digital processing steps to analyze thermal images of pain patients and summarize the results with a computer-aided decision-support system. Results from our analysis are expected to be validated by a statistical comparison with actual medical outcomes for the pain patients considered in the study.