Date: 15/05/2014

Fujitsu uses image processing tech for patient monitoring

Fujitsu Laboratories employs image processing technology to monitor bed-ridden patients in a hospital. Fujitsu uses camera to capture the movement of patient's head to know what exactly patient is doing, whether trying to sit up in the bed or getting out of the bed, or moving in bed.
Fujitsu uses technology that recognizes and tracks the patient's head with a camera to know when the patient sits up or gets out of bed, which can be precursors to actions such as wandering or slipping or falling. The second is a technology that detects and visualizes conditions such as restiveness or sleeplessness, which demand further attention (see Figure below ).

Figure: Technology of recognizing patient status using a camera

Fujitsu has explained the technology further as below:
The technology categorizes the state of a patient in bed into five categories depending on posture, and has defined a state-transition diagram that relates them (Figure 2). The appearance of the patient's head depends on which state the patient is in, so Fujitsu Laboratories defined the head detection area for each state, and generated learned data limited to the appearance of the head in those positions (such as orientation and size).

The recognition process also uses learned data where the next likely states are limited by the current state, based on the state-transition diagram. Selecting the learned data used in the recognition process in response to the patient's state results in highly accurate head recognition.

Read more on this at www.fujitsu.com
Author: Srinivasa Reddy N