System and method for assessing wound

Abstract

The wound assessing method and system of the present teachings provide a convenient, quantitative mechanism for diabetic foot ulcer assessment.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for assessing chronic wounds and ulcers, comprising:
 capturing an image of a body part including a wound area;   analyzing the image to extract a boundary of the wound area; and   performing color segmentation within the boundary, wherein the wound area is divided into a plurality of segments, each segment being associated with a color indicating a healing condition of the segment; and   evaluating the wound area.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said evaluating the wound area comprises determining a healing score as a method for quantifying a healing status of the wound area. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein analyzing the image comprises performing mean shift segmentation and object recognition. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein analyzing the image comprises using a trained classifier. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein performing the color segmentation comprises performing a K-mean color clustering algorithm; and
 evaluating the wound area comprises using a red-yellow-black evaluation model for evaluation of the color segmentation.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein performing the color segmentation comprises using a K-mean color clustering algorithm on results of images used for training a classifier. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein capturing an image comprises using a camera of a handheld portable electronic device.