Age Group Discrimination via Free Handwriting Indicators

TL;DR

This study introduces a novel handwriting-based method using an instrumented pen to classify age groups with high accuracy, aiding early detection of age-related frailty in real-world settings.

Contribution

It presents an innovative, non-invasive approach to classify age groups through handwriting analysis, addressing the lack of standardized frailty assessment methods.

Findings

Classifier accuracy ranged from 82.5% to 97.5%.

Handwriting features showed age-dependent sensitivity.

Method enables early detection of ageing signs in uncontrolled environments.

Abstract

The growing global elderly population is expected to increase the prevalence of frailty, posing significant challenges to healthcare systems. Frailty, a syndrome associated with ageing, is characterised by progressive health decline, increased vulnerability to stressors and increased risk of mortality. It represents a significant burden on public health and reduces the quality of life of those affected. The lack of a universally accepted method to assess frailty and a standardised definition highlights a critical research gap. Given this lack and the importance of early prevention, this study presents an innovative approach using an instrumented ink pen to ecologically assess handwriting for age group classification. Content-free handwriting data from 80 healthy participants in different age groups (20-40, 41-60, 61-70 and 70+) were analysed. Fourteen gesture- and tremor-related indicators were computed from the raw data and used in five classification tasks. These tasks included discriminating between adjacent and non-adjacent age groups using Catboost and Logistic Regression classifiers. Results indicate exceptional classifier performance, with accuracy ranging from 82.5% to 97.5%, precision from 81.8% to 100%, recall from 75% to 100% and ROC-AUC from 92.2% to 100%. Model interpretability, facilitated by SHAP analysis, revealed age-dependent sensitivity of temporal and tremor-related handwriting features. Importantly, this classification method offers potential for early detection of abnormal signs of ageing in uncontrolled settings such as remote home monitoring, thereby addressing the critical issue of frailty detection and contributing to improved care for older adults.