A clinically oriented video-based system for quantification of eyelid movements

A field-worthy system was developed to quantify the eyelid movements in clinical sites. The system consists of a home-use charge-coupled device video camera, a processing unit, and a personal computer. A white marker of 4-mm diameter and 30-mg weight is attached to the lower margin of the upper eyelid. The processing unit automatically detects the vertical displacement of the upper edge of the marker. One marker is attached to each eye so that the movements of the both eyelids are measured with one camera simultaneously. The measurement error of the system was evaluated in experiments on eight healthy subjects and eight patients with eyelid paralysis. The mean of the absolute error of peak amplitudes occurring in 2 min was 0.81 mm, with the worst error being +1.7 mm. The reproducibility of the mean peak amplitude measured on five consecutive days was within 1 mm. The mean peak amplitudes of both eyes were measured preoperatively and postoperatively for approximately three months for three patients who were operated on to remove vestibular schwannoma. The results demonstrated basic clinical utility of the system.