Statistical approximation of plantar temperature distribution on diabetic subjects based on beta mixture model

A change in plantar temperature distribution can be an indicator of tissue damage, inflammation, or peripheral vascular abnormalities associated with diabetic foot. Despite the efforts to detect these abnormalities through infrared thermography, there are still several problems to be addressed, especially to detect abnormalities on each foot separately. In this paper, a characterization of the plantar temperature distribution based on a probabilistic approach is proposed. The objective is to detect temperature variations on each foot eluding contralateral comparison. A beta mixture model with four components approximates the plantar temperature distributions of diabetic and non-diabetic subjects. Each component represents an area of the plantar region: toes; metatarsal heads; arch; and heel. The approximation was applied to 60 temperature distributions of non-diabetic subjects and 220 of diabetic subjects. The results suggest that it is possible to characterize distribution in terms of the mean of its beta components