Optimizing Ayurveda based Human Constituents Diagnosis by Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

Ancient Indian culture has many precious gems in its baskets. One of these invaluable gems is Ayurveda, which has been serving the mankind to maintain a healthy and disease free life. Somehow during the British rule this knowledge didn’t flourish and thus gradually slipped in to oblivion. As an instrumentation engineer we often emphasize a lot on various aspect of biomedical instrumentation for diagnosis and curing the disease. Somehow we have been so far ignoring the fact that we already have a very rich database of achieving this objective in simple non invasive way, leading to quick healing. It is therefore pertinent that while we update our knowledge of latest advancement in the field of biomedical instrumentation, we also take a peep back in our own heritage and rediscover the hidden treasure. If this ancient science is made to work in conjunction with the precise instrument and vast computational power, a lot can be achieved which cannot be imagined by the so called modern medical scientists. This report introduces the concept of Ayurveda, the three Ayurvedic doshas and a questionnaire that is optimized using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The need of this questionnaire arises from the fact that no standard questionnaire is available as such. In case we combine all the questions from the entire questionnaire available, the questionnaire so formed becomes too lengthy to be filled in by the subject. The optimized questionnaire so obtained may be used to find the Ayurvedic doshas in a subject and then validate the doshas determined using instrumental methods. This report thus may be considered as spadework for the researchers pursuing the instrumental techniques for determining Ayurvedic dosha. The thesis work results in devising four methods of dosha diagnosis, namely Gold-Standard, Sub-Group, Minimum- Correlation and Quick-Shot Methods. It is concluded that either sub-group method or minimum correlation method questionnaire for general use as both produce equally accurate results. In tricky situations, where the physician wants highly precise results, comprehensive or gold standard method may be used. However, for common ailments Quick-Shot method is recommended for faster and yet reliable diagnosis.