A Feasibility Study of Constitution Discrimination Using a Measurement Device for Dynamic Friction Coefficients of the Back of a Hand

1. Objectives Our goal is to observe the feasibility of constitution discrimination from computing quantitative roughness index from dynamic friction coefficients and their gradients with the measurement device of skin friction with 3-Axis load cell sensor. 2. Methods In the traditional Korean medicine, skin diagnosis is one of the examination methods to discriminate Sasang constitution since it was known that Tae-eumin has rough skin, and Soyangin has smooth one. It is based on the skin roughness on the back of one's hand for the discrimination. The measurement device of skin friction with 3-axis load cell sensor has been developed in order to provide quantitative skin roughness through dynamic friction coefficients. The effective interval of the coefficients is obtained from the automatic sampling algorithm to use their curvature and slope. Then, Fisher's discriminant function of them makes the discrimination. 3. Results The success rate of extracting the effective interval was about 90% and the discriminant accuracy between Tae-eumin and Soyangin was 70% and 68% for men and women, respectively. The entire methods showed the possibility to distinguish between Tae-eumin and Soyangin by using stochastic properties of roughness index, which can make the entire system to include the measurement, the computation of the roughness index and the discrimination of constitution automatical. 4. Conclusions The measurement device, the automatic sampling algorithm of dynamic friction coefficients and the constitution discrimination algorithm were developed, respectively, and their combination can become the serial and automatic procedure for quantitative and objective skin diagnosis, which mimics the movement of the Oriental medical doctors' skin diagnosis. It can be applied to healthcare as well as the diagnosis of constitution in a u-Health system soon.