Nystagmus Estimation for Dizziness Diagnosis by Pupil Detection and Tracking Using Mexican-Hat-Type Ellipse Pattern Matching

Abstract

The detection of nystagmus using video oculography experiences accuracy problems when patients who complain of dizziness have difficulty in fully opening their eyes. Pupil detection and tracking in this condition affect the accuracy of the nystagmus waveform. In this research, we design a pupil detection method using a pattern matching approach that approximates the pupil using a Mexican hat-type ellipse pattern, in order to deal with the aforementioned problem. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method, in comparison with that of a conventional Hough transform method, for eye movement videos retrieved from Gifu University Hospital. The performance results show that the proposed method can detect and track the pupil position, even when only 20% of the pupil is visible. In comparison, the conventional Hough transform only indicates good performance when 90% of the pupil is visible. We also evaluate the proposed method using the Labelled Pupil in the Wild (LPW) data set. The results show that the proposed method has an accuracy of 1.47, as evaluated using the Mean Square Error (MSE), which is much lower than that of the conventional Hough transform method, with an MSE of 9.53. We conduct expert validation by consulting three medical specialists regarding the nystagmus waveform. The medical specialists agreed that the waveform can be evaluated clinically, without contradicting their diagnoses.