Monitoring system of body movements for a bedridden patient

In this article a system to detect the physical behavior of bedridden elderly people is proposed. This system is used to prevent elderly people from falling down and injuring themselves. The basic idea of our approach is to measure the body movements of the person using an acceleration sensor. Based on the data measured, dangerous actions are recorded and warning signals to the care workers are generated via wireless signals. A feature of the system is that the sensor is compactly assembled as a wearable unit. Another feature of the system is that it adopts a simplified wireless network system. Owing to its network capability, the system can monitor the physical movements of many patients. The applicability of the system is now being examined at hospitals. This work was presented in part at the 10th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, February 4–6, 2005