Abstract
Evacuation disorder(ED) is frequently observed in the elderly people. In this study, we investigated the tongue color properties in the elderly. 327 subjects were participated in this study and classified into normal group (n=95) and ED group (n=23) by two Korean Oriental Medicine doctors. The tongue images were acquired by using computerized tongue diagnosis system, and its color were linearly corrected base on CIE $L^*a^*b^*$ values of 12 color samples. The tongue region was segmented from acquired image and divided into two regions along the vertical direction. In order to estimate color properties of the tongue, a color histogram was calculated for the root region based on the CIE $L^*$ and $a^*$ values, and differences of color histogram values between normal and ED groups were computed based on the Mann-Whitney U test. As results, pixels corresponding to typical colors of the pale tongue and thin tongue coating were significantly more distributed in ED than those in normal group(p<0.05). The tongue color of the root region in ED was revealed to be different from those in healthy subjects.
