Can computer skin analysis like Visia take the place of medical diagnosis, or is it just complementary?

The Visia skin analysis is a good educational tool and can be very helpful in guiding treatment.

It can be sort of shocking when you see yourself up close and personal. The UV image is especially disturbing when you see the damage sun has done below the surface.

We can take some really good photographs that can be used at the completion of a laser package where we have evened the skin tone. We can do the same thing for after they’ve done filler. We can show them two weeks later after any swelling has calmed down, just what their lips looked like, before and after. We can see up close and personal what the improvement on those brown spots have been there. Red capillaries, how much improvement has gotten there.

Is it the be all, end all, objective analysis? I think it’s just helpful for the client to see what is going on and to use as a tool to highlight things that might need to be addressed. It’s not an objective diagnostic medical tool. It is a comparison. "This is where your skin is at compared to one hundred other people in your age group, statistically this is where you kind of fall." You’re at the top eighty percent. You look pretty good. You’re in the bottom fifteen percent, uh-oh, we’ve got to do some work on you." Then people can decide. "Well, that really worries me, I really want to get to work. What can I do to improve myself?"