Citation

Maglogiannis I, Doukas C. IEEE Trans. Inf. Technol. Biomed. 2011; 15(2): 277-289.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

DOI

10.1109/TITB.2010.2091140

PMID

21062686

Abstract

The paper presents the implementation details of a patient status awareness enabling human activity interpretation and emergency detection in cases where the personal health is threatened like elder falls or patient collapses. The proposed system utilizes video, audio and motion data captured from the patient body using appropriate body-sensors and the surrounding environment, using overhead cameras, and microphone arrays. Appropriate tracking techniques are applied to the visual perceptual component enabling the trajectory tracking of persons, while proper audio data processing and sound directionality analysis in conjunction to motion information and subjects visual location can verify fall and indicate an emergency event. The post fall visual and motion behavior of the subject, which indicates the severity of the fall (e.g., if the person remains unconscious or patient recovers), is performed through a semantic representation of the patients status, context and rules-based evaluation and advanced classification. A number of advanced classification techniques have been examined in the framework of this study and their corresponding performance in terms of accuracy and efficiency in detecting an emergency situation has been thoroughly assessed.

Language: en