Plagiocephaly Pressure Headband

Plagiocephaly is a condition in which areas of an infant’s head are abnormally shaped or flattened. It affects 47% of infants, with 10% having to undergo medical treatment, in the form of a helmet orthosis, to correct the deformities so as not to cause the infant long term health issues. Currently, no known quantitative methods are being utilized to measure the helmet’s effectiveness over time as a treatment method. Thus, our proposed solution offers a means of tracking the progress and overall effect of the helmet treatment by measuring how the deformities of the infant’s head change over time during each biweekly routine checkup. Our headband-shaped device consists of a rigid outer layer, with a series of 43 force-sensitive resistors along its inner circumference to record pressure measurements around the entirety of the infant’s skull. The sensors are connected to an Arduino Uno Wifi Rev2, which is powered by a 9V battery, allowing our device to transmit all data recordings wirelessly to both the Arduino and MATLAB applications for data analysis and visualization. Using laboratory weights ranging from 10g to 5000g, we conducted verification testing that determined our sensors’ accuracy to be 90-95%, with no significant statistical differences between measured and real weight values (p < 0.05). Using these pressure measurements, along with compiling previously recorded data, we are able to create a two dimensional model of the changes in pressure of various areas of the head, indicating the deformities being corrected. This means of monitoring the progression of the helmet treatment of a plagiocephaly patient will allow clinicians to better understand and predict the effects of patients’ helmet shapes on their treatment progress.