Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Sep 10:9:45.
doi: 10.1186/s13034-015-0076-1. eCollection 2015.

An objective measure of hyperactivity aspects with compressed webcam video

Thomas Wehrmann #  1 , Jörg Michael Müller #  1
Affiliations

An objective measure of hyperactivity aspects with compressed webcam video

Thomas Wehrmann et al. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health. .

Abstract

Background: Objective measures of physical activity are currently not considered in clinical guidelines for the assessment of hyperactivity in the context of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) due to low and inconsistent associations between clinical ratings, missing age-related norm data and high technical requirements.

Methods: This pilot study introduces a new objective measure for physical activity using compressed webcam video footage, which should be less affected by age-related variables. A pre-test established a preliminary standard procedure for testing a clinical sample of 39 children aged 6-16 years (21 with a clinical ADHD diagnosis, 18 without). Subjects were filmed for 6 min while solving a standardized cognitive performance task. Our webcam video-based video-activity score was compared with respect to two independent video-based movement ratings by students, ratings of Inattentiveness, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity by clinicians (DCL-ADHS) giving a clinical diagnosis of ADHD and parents (FBB-ADHD) and physical features (age, weight, height, BMI) using mean scores, correlations and multiple regression.

Results: Our video-activity score showed a high agreement (r = 0.81) with video-based movement ratings, but also considerable associations with age-related physical attributes. After controlling for age-related confounders, the video-activity score showed not the expected association with clinicians' or parents' hyperactivity ratings.

Conclusions: Our preliminary conclusion is that our video-activity score assesses physical activity but not specific information related to hyperactivity. The general problem of defining and assessing hyperactivity with objective criteria remains.

Keywords: ADHD; Hyperactivity; Objective measure; Physical activity; Video.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
File size, in kbyte, as a function of time for the five conditions (see legend)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Webcam recording setting. Figure 1 shows the general setup used to record movement. The camera adjustment is shown on the left. The distance to each subject was detected by barely capturing the scalp and feet while placing the camera on a table approximately 50 cm above the ground. On the right side, a picture of a sequence is shown. The camera was adjusted so that each subject was sitting roughly in the middle of the frame
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Rowland AS, Lesesne CA, Abramowitz AJ. The epidemiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a public health view. Ment Retard Dev Disabil Res Rev. 2002;8(3):162–170. doi: 10.1002/mrdd.10036. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ullebø A, Posserud M, Heiervang E, Obel C, Gillberg C (2012) Prevalence of the ADHD phenotype in 7- to 9-year-old children: effects of informant, gender and non-participation. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol [serial online] 47(5):763–769. Available from: MEDLINE, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 26, 2015 - PMC - PubMed
    1. American Psychiatric Association: Section II (2013) Diagnostic criteria and codes: neurodevelopmental disorders. In: American Psychiatric Association (ed) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edn. American Psychiatric Publishing, Arlington, pp 31–87
    1. Steinau S. Diagnostic criteria in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - changes in DSM 5. Front Psychiatry. 2013;4:49. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00049. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wolraich M, Brown L, Brown R, et al. ADHD: clinical practice guideline for the diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents. Pediatrics. 2011;128(5):1007–1022. doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2654. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources