Automatic bed position control based on hand gesture recognition for disabled patients

Abstract

In recent years, society is facing many sociological and financial challenges, so there is less time for the elderly or disabled persons. There is an increase in the number of disabled patients in society in which the patient cannot take care of themselves. A full time caretaker may be required to continuously monitor these patients, which is not always possible due to social or financial constraints. The existing electronic bed systems available in hospitals have only two movements of the bed (Up and Down). So, to minimize care takers requirement and increase the comfort level of the patients here, we have proposed an automatic bed position control system for disabled patients in which we have added two more movements to the existing electronic bed systems (Left and Right) movement of the bed based on different hand gestures. A particular gesture input is given by the patient to the system, then this gesture is given to the micro-controller via RS-232 communication cable. The micro-controller further processes this input from the system and changes the position of the bed automatically with the help of DC motors and the accelerometer is used as a sensor to detect and display the patient fall.