Method and apparatus for health and safety monitoring of a subject in a room

Inventors

FRAZ, Muhammad • JONES, Simon Mark Chave • TESTA, Luke Marcus Biagio

Assignees

Oxehealth Ltd

Abstract

A method and apparatus for monitoring the health and safety of a subject in a room such as a secure room based on video images of the subject. The images are analysed to characterise the movement of the subject as gross movement, fine movement or no movement. In the case of gross movement, no vital signs of the subject are estimated and a display indicates that the subject is moving, but no vital signs are available. In the absence of gross movement, vital signs of the subject such as heart rate or breathing rate are estimated from the video images of the subject, for example by detecting and analysing photoplethysmogram signals in the video images, and the vital signs are displayed. Alerts may be generated if the vital signs are out of the normal physiological range. If vital signs cannot be detected in the video images but the movement of the subject is characterised as fine movement, the display shows that no vital signs are being estimated, but that the subject is moving. If no movement is detected and no vital signs estimate is obtained, then the display generates an alert indicating lack of movement and lack of vital signs.

Core Innovation

A method of monitoring a subject in a room uses a video camera to capture a video image sequence of the room. A data processor automatically measures movement of different parts of the scene to detect areas of gross movement and fine movement, and estimates one or more vital signs of the subject. The output indicates the status of the subject based on both the classification of movement and the presence or absence of vital signs.

The estimating of vital signs is conducted by analysing areas of the video image sequence not containing gross movement. If the estimating is not providing a valid heart rate or breathing rate, the method determines whether fine movement is present in the video image sequence. When fine movement is present, the output indication states that no vital signs are detected and outputs the length of time for which no vital signs have been detected.

When fine movement is not present, the method outputs an alert indicating that no vital signs and no movement are detected. An apparatus and a non-transitory computer readable medium are described to perform the same processing logic with video capture, movement classification, vital-sign estimation from areas not containing gross movement, and conditional status/alert output based on validity of heart rate or breathing rate and presence or absence of fine movement.

Claims Coverage

The document identifies three independent claims: a method, an apparatus, and a non-transitory computer readable medium. Across these claims, the main inventive features total three conditional processing and output aspects.

Across the independent claims, the inventive coverage centers on automatically classifying gross versus fine movement in the captured video scene, estimating vital signs by analysing only video areas not containing gross movement, and using a conditional fine-movement check when heart rate or breathing rate is not valid to decide between a duration-based no vital signs detected indication and an alert for no vital signs and no movement detected.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications

No documented applications found