BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients

Falls are an important medical safety issue, and patients older than 65 years are the most prone to falling in hospitals. According to a previous study, approximately 80% of falls occur near hospital beds. Although many visual devices can be used to detect and prevent falls from a bed, these devices...

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Main Authors: Liang-Bi Chen, Wan-Jung Chang, Tzu-Chin Yang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10949079/
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author Liang-Bi Chen
Wan-Jung Chang
Tzu-Chin Yang
author_facet Liang-Bi Chen
Wan-Jung Chang
Tzu-Chin Yang
author_sort Liang-Bi Chen
collection DOAJ
description Falls are an important medical safety issue, and patients older than 65 years are the most prone to falling in hospitals. According to a previous study, approximately 80% of falls occur near hospital beds. Although many visual devices can be used to detect and prevent falls from a bed, these devices cannot accurately recognize and separate all movements of getting out of a bed. To solve this problem, this study proposes a skeleton identification technology-based early warning system named BedEye to detect bed exits and bedside falls in older patients. The main novelty of the proposed BedEye system lies in its application of skeleton recognition technology to accurately detect bed exits and prevent bedside falls among elderly patients. Traditional methods, including wearable and nonwearable systems, often face challenges such as high false alarm rates and difficulties in recognizing complex movements such as getting in and out of bed. The proposed BedEye system addresses these issues by combining AI-based skeleton identification with edge computing to ensure high accuracy in detecting all postures during bed exit movements. The proposed BedEye system innovatively utilizes OpenPose-light, which is a lightweight version of the OpenPose model optimized for edge computing. The proposed BedEye system processes real-time images captured by an RGB sensor, which are then fed into a deep learning model running locally on an Nvidia Jetson Xavier-NX edge computing device. This ensures faster processing with minimized delays and without reliance on cloud computing, which reduces network bandwidth use. Moreover, we develop an algorithm for determining bed posture using the posture of patients leaving the bed. BedEye was validated through both laboratory-based experiments and clinical human trials. Compared with previous solutions, the proposed BedEye system demonstrated effectiveness, with an accuracy rate of 97.4% for detecting bed exits and bedside falls in elderly patients, significantly improving the prediction of patient movements. This validation confirms the system’s high reliability in real-world healthcare settings.
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spelling doaj-art-f9c0fa10de2e47a2991f4f02094bf0eb2025-08-20T02:09:24ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-0113604036042310.1109/ACCESS.2025.355800410949079BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly PatientsLiang-Bi Chen0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3181-4480Wan-Jung Chang1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7478-7315Tzu-Chin Yang2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1335-0811Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Penghu University of Science and Technology, Magong, TaiwanDepartment of Electronic Engineering, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, TaiwanDepartment of Electronic Engineering, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Tainan, TaiwanFalls are an important medical safety issue, and patients older than 65 years are the most prone to falling in hospitals. According to a previous study, approximately 80% of falls occur near hospital beds. Although many visual devices can be used to detect and prevent falls from a bed, these devices cannot accurately recognize and separate all movements of getting out of a bed. To solve this problem, this study proposes a skeleton identification technology-based early warning system named BedEye to detect bed exits and bedside falls in older patients. The main novelty of the proposed BedEye system lies in its application of skeleton recognition technology to accurately detect bed exits and prevent bedside falls among elderly patients. Traditional methods, including wearable and nonwearable systems, often face challenges such as high false alarm rates and difficulties in recognizing complex movements such as getting in and out of bed. The proposed BedEye system addresses these issues by combining AI-based skeleton identification with edge computing to ensure high accuracy in detecting all postures during bed exit movements. The proposed BedEye system innovatively utilizes OpenPose-light, which is a lightweight version of the OpenPose model optimized for edge computing. The proposed BedEye system processes real-time images captured by an RGB sensor, which are then fed into a deep learning model running locally on an Nvidia Jetson Xavier-NX edge computing device. This ensures faster processing with minimized delays and without reliance on cloud computing, which reduces network bandwidth use. Moreover, we develop an algorithm for determining bed posture using the posture of patients leaving the bed. BedEye was validated through both laboratory-based experiments and clinical human trials. Compared with previous solutions, the proposed BedEye system demonstrated effectiveness, with an accuracy rate of 97.4% for detecting bed exits and bedside falls in elderly patients, significantly improving the prediction of patient movements. This validation confirms the system’s high reliability in real-world healthcare settings.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10949079/Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)bed exit and bedside fall warningbedside fall warningelderly patientsedge computingfall detection
spellingShingle Liang-Bi Chen
Wan-Jung Chang
Tzu-Chin Yang
BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients
IEEE Access
Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)
bed exit and bedside fall warning
bedside fall warning
elderly patients
edge computing
fall detection
title BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients
title_full BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients
title_fullStr BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients
title_full_unstemmed BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients
title_short BedEye: A Bed Exit and Bedside Fall Warning System Based on Skeleton Recognition Technology for Elderly Patients
title_sort bedeye a bed exit and bedside fall warning system based on skeleton recognition technology for elderly patients
topic Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT)
bed exit and bedside fall warning
bedside fall warning
elderly patients
edge computing
fall detection
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10949079/
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AT wanjungchang bedeyeabedexitandbedsidefallwarningsystembasedonskeletonrecognitiontechnologyforelderlypatients
AT tzuchinyang bedeyeabedexitandbedsidefallwarningsystembasedonskeletonrecognitiontechnologyforelderlypatients