Aesthesiometer

The Von Frey Aesthesiometer is a classical tool to determine touch perception thresholds. Von Frey hairs from SOMEDIC provide unique and essential data about their relationship between humidity and force.

Maximilian von Frey showed already in 1896 that the threshold for touch evoked sensations in humans can be determined by sequentially applying hairs of different diameters until the hair that just creates the requested sensation is found. One hair can also be used for screening purposes, to find if that particular hair - with its buckling force - produces a particular sensation or not. This can be used to study skin areas with normal as well as hyper- or hyposensitive areas

SOMEDIC’s Aesthesiometer evaluates the skins sensitivity to touch by using a set of 17 filaments mounted on Plexiglas handles. Each handle has at one end a nylon monofilament mounted at a right angle to the handle.

The force required to buckle the monofilament increases from 0.026 g in the first handle of the set to 110 g in the last (corresponding to a pressure range of 5 g/mm² to 178 g/mm²). The handles are marked according to accepted standards and are delivered in a specially designed case. For optimum accuracy each case is equipped with a thermo-/hygrometer.