Monitoring physiological conditions

Abstract

A method for monitoring physiological conditions of an individual including capturing images according to predefined capture criteria of one or more body regions of the individual on an ongoing basis; transforming the captured images in response to capture conditions present during image capture to provide a normalized image; calculating wellness parameters based on the normalized image; storing system data, including the normalized image, capture parameters, normalization transforms, or wellness parameters, or combinations thereof, monitoring and analyzing the wellness parameters in view of both current and prior semantic data to identify potential changes in physiological conditions; and providing alerts indicative of changes in said physiological conditions of at least one image.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]Reference is made to commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 555,822, filed Nov. 2, 2006, entitled “An Integrated Display Having Multiple Capture Devices”, by Kurtz et al, U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ filed concurrently herewith, entitled “Establishing Baseline Data for Physiological Monitoring System” by Gobeyn et al, U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ filed concurrently herewith, entitled “Capturing Data for Individual Physiological Monitoring” by Kurtz et al, U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ filed concurrently herewith, entitled “Image Data Normalization for a Monitoring System” by Gobeyn et al, U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ filed concurrently herewith, entitled “Inferring Wellness from Physiological Condition Data” by Gobeyn et al and U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ filed concurrently herewith, entitled “Privacy Management for Well-Being Monitoring” by Kurtz et al, the disclosures...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]Thus, the present invention is generally useful for aiding individual monitoring and assessment of general well being and health. The present invention functions unobtrusively, perhaps on a daily basis, with consideration for privacy, while enabling monitoring of one or more individuals. The system enables assessment of a wide range of general physiological conditions, which can be used within the family setting, or shared within a family's social network or with medical professionals, as seems appropriate.

Problems solved by technology

However, in many instances, significant time can pass during which subtle physiological changes can be occurring to an individual without their awareness.

Thus, again, the Eldridge '140 system does not propose a monitoring system for physiologic conditions applicable to the home environment.

The Peltz '716 system can be as expansive as a flatbed truck and is clearly not intended for common-day residential use.

However, these driver fatigue assessment systems are not used to assess the well-being or health of one or more individuals in a residential environment.

Thus, these systems do not anticipate the issues (including managing privacy, unobtrusive image capture, image normalization), the opportunities, or the design of a residential family well-being monitoring system.

Additionally, these systems really do not provide imaging-based health assessments for multiple individuals that address the variability that would be expected, including variations in age, ethnicity, ambient lighting conditions, seasonally induced changes in appearance, privacy, health history, and other factors.

While the intelligent medicine cabinet of Wan '281 is useful, it does not use a camera for assessing the physiological state or conditions of the users, and as such, it does not anticipate either the issues or opportunities that arise from such considerations.

In particular, they do not anticipate an unobtrusive system capable of ongoing, day after day, monitoring of multiple individuals.

Additionally, none of these systems provides image normalization to account for the variability associated with multiple individuals, lighting conditions, seasonal changes, and other factors.

However, the photo is then deliberately removed when the camera is used for video capture.

Images