Application of colour magnification technique for revealing skin microcirculation changes under regional anaesthetic input

In this work the colour magnification technique was applied for monitoring of palm skin microcirculation changes under peripheral (Plexus Brachialis with axiliary access) Regional Anaesthesia (RA). During the RA procedure 20 minute video of patient’s forearm was taken at steady light conditions. Video content was processed offline by custom developed Matlab software with build-in colour magnification algorithm that performs temporal filtering of video sequence near-heartbeat frequency, spatial decomposition of video and amplification of pulsatile signal in every pixel of skin image. Using this method, we are able to visualize the subcutaneous microcirculation changes in high spatial resolution. The results showed different blood pulse amplitude dynamics over the skin regions of palm and forearm during the RA. The colour magnification technique could be used for real-time monitoring of RA effect.