Novel assessment of facial skin displacement across age groups using a custom‐designed imaging device: Evidence from French women

Age-related facial skin displacement typically manifests as sagging and wrinkling. This study investigated age-related facial skin displacement in specific anatomical regions associated with changes in participant position. A custom-designed imaging apparatus was constructed, featuring a chair capable of transitioning between upright and supine positions. A 3D camera, a 2D frontal camera and a 2D lateral camera move with the chair and record the participant's face from multiple viewpoints. The participant's head is positioned along the Frankfurt horizontal plane, and a headrest prevents movement. A validation study was conducted with a sample of 60 French women aged 20-69 years, distributed across five 10-year cohorts. 3D skin displacement relative to 0° (upright) was measured at chair positions of 22.5°, 45°, 67.5° and 90° (supine) in the under-eye region, at the cheeks and around the nasolabial fold. A dense 3D displacement field was calculated across the face to measure the magnitude and direction of skin displacement in the three target regions. Facial skin displacement magnitude increased with chair position and participant age. An additional rating study (500 French women, aged 30-40 years) showed that perceived age (assessed from 2D images) decreased with position change from upright to supine. We conclude that our custom-designed device can accurately assess and depict facial skin displacement attributable primarily to gravity-dependent skin sagging.