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.