Abstract
The skin’s ability to sense its environment is vital to activities of
daily living. Cutaneous sensory perception diagnostics allow for the
early detection and symptom tracking of tactile dysfunction. However,
lack of access to healthcare and the limited frequency of current
screening tools can leave skin sensation impairments undiscovered or
unmonitored. This work presents a smartphone application for Cutaneous
Hand Assessment with a Smartphone Interface (CHASI) to establish
Vibrational Perception Thresholds (VPT). CHASI’s vibrational output and
force measurement abilities are also characterized. An 18-participant
cross-sectional study, with both normative subjects and subjects with
sensation impairment, compares the monofilament test with smartphone
established VPT (SE- VPT). We find a high positive correlation between
SE-VPT and monofilament scores (rs=0.83, p = 0.00014). We also
investigate the sensitivity of our proposed SE-VPT method to the motions
and forces applied to the touchscreen. We find that variations in force
do not alter the practical significance of the monofilament correlation.
These results further the smartphone as a potential diagnostic and
monitoring tool for hand health.