Telesurveillance of elderly patients by use of passive infra-red sensors in a 'smart' room.
We have developed an automated surveillance system based on passive infra-red sensors. Eight sensors were installed in a hospital room. A computer automatically captured data from the sensors every night from 21:00 until 06:00 the following morning. The sensors were polled twice per second and when a sensor was activated by movement, the event and time were recorded in a data file. At the end of the surveillance period the program analysed the data and generated a report showing the activities taking place in the room and their times. Four elderly patients were observed for a total of 97 nights. A total of 1637 possible sequences of movements by the patient and the hospital staff were detected. The computer was able to identify 1450 sequences (89%) correctly, in comparison with manual analysis. Only 10 movements (0.6%) were undetected by the system; all were very short sequences (five or six activations of the sensors). The system was generally capable of detecting and classifying all major movements in the room.
Banerjee
S
S
Laboratoire Interuniversitaire de Gérontologie, Pavillon Elisée Chatin, Département de Médecine Gériatrique et Communautaire, CHU de Grenoble, La Tronche, 38043 Cedex 09, France. Soutrik.Banerjee@ujf-grenoble.fr
Steenkeste
F
F
Couturier
P
P
Debray
M
M
Franco
A
A
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006299:Health Services for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D007259:Infrared Rays; D008297:Male; D009038:Motion; D009551:Night Care / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D017751:Safety Management / Q000592:standards*; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000295:instrumentation*