Measurement of Capillary Refill Time (CRT) in Healthy Subjects Using a Robotic Hand

Emmett Kerr, Sonya Coleman, Martin McGinnity, Andrea Shepherd; Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Workshops, 2018, pp. 1291-1298

A human's CRT is a key indicator of their current health status. Being able to accurately assess a human's cardiovascular system peripherally by assessing their CRT in an emergency or search and rescue situation could, in critical scenarios, mean the difference between life and death. This paper presents a novel algorithm that enables a Shadow Robot Hand equipped with BioTAC biomimetic tactile fingertip sensors and a red, green, blue (RGB) camera to measure the CRT of humans by making contact with their forehead, regardless of their skin tone. The method presented replicates, to some extent, the methods carried out by medical professionals when measuring CRT and could be used to equip a first responder robot. Furthermore, the algorithms determine whether a person has a healthy cardiovascular system or whether the blood supply has been cut off from the skin indicating various issues such as shock or severe dehydration. The method presented in this work allows for a more accurate measurement of CRT than that of a medical professional.