Nothing Beat A Standard Photo

When a patient develops kidney disease and undergoes treatment, the only way for the patient to really know his or her treatment has been successful is to rely on the kidney doctor to assess things through use of various fancy tests. A patient does not attend follow up appointments saying that the kidneys feel better and look better. He or she relies on the doctor’s assessment.

Hair is a bit different.

When a patient develops hair loss and undergoes treatment, their are many ways for the patient to know that his or her treatment is successful. Objective assessments are better than subjective ones.

One can rely on the hair specialist to assess things through use of various fancy tests and measurements.  The patient and practitioner can learn through use of “trichoscopy that they once had 84.3 hairs in every square centimetre and now after treatment there are 89.2 hairs in every square centimetre. 

This is indeed an improvement although the patient in this example does not feel or look any different and is rather disappointed with the outcome and plans secretly never to return to that clinic ever again.

Another patient might learn that the average hair caliber used to be 56.4 micrometers thick in a certain area of the scalp and now the hair are 65.4 micrometers thick in that same area. 

This too is an improvement and fortunately in this example the patient did feel and look very different and was delighted. 

Measurements of this nature are very nice. Our brains love numbers that change.

But nothing beats the “before and after” images provided by an inexpensive and simple camera with properly obtained standard scalp images. If a simple camera can not capture an improvement in a patient’s hair density, you need to question if the treatment is truly working. 

Before and after photos of the patient in example 1 showed no change. Before and after photos of the patient in example 2 showed a very nice change. The fancy hair measurements only confirm what photos had proven.

If I can not capture that any patient has had an improvement with a $ 20 camera I really do not care so much for carefully evaluating the numbers I obtain with my $ 10,000 camera.

Trichoscopy measurements are essential to document improvement for a variety of research purposes. They are also wonderful if the patient’s hair length is strikingly different between appointment visits.

But for 99 % of patients coming and going from the hair clinic, nothing beats a simple camera and a series of good photographs to document whether a treatment has been successful.

At the end of the day, of course, what matters most is that the patient feels they have had an improvement. A simple before and after photograph is a highly effective predictor of how a patient will feel about his or her treatment results. It is not perfect by any means but it is essential skill for the hair practitioner to master taking good photos well ahead of mastering any type of fancy devices.