“Physical Function Independence Support Device Of Physical Function And Method Therefor” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20210020295)

2021 FEB 04 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventors LI, Yuan (Tokyo, Japan); YUDA, Shinya (Tokyo, Japan); SUZUKI, Hideaki (Tokyo, Japan), filed on March 30, 2018, was made available online on January 21, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application is assigned to Hitachi Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In nursing care business, various services and facilities are provided to elderly who need nursing care. For example, the market for home nursing care, medical services, nursing homes for the elderly, insurance facilities, recuperation facilities, group homes, day care, and the like has been very mature. There is a clear demand for caregivers to perform health checkups, management, daily life support, and the like for the elderly. However, the support for the elderly by caregivers requires a large amount of resources.

“In recent years, the market for nursing care of the elderly has been expanded with an increase in the elderly population over the age of 65. In the nursing care business, services have expanded not only for elderly people who need nursing care, but also for elderly people who may need nursing care in the future and healthy elderly people. Accordingly techniques that measure states of the elderly have been developed. If measurement items are roughly classified, there are a technique that measures body dimensions such as body shape information, height, and weight, and a technique that measures physical function information.

“As the conventional technique that measures physical function information, there are a technique that uses a wearable sensor to measure a heart rate, a blood pressure, electroencephalogram, and the like, and a technique that uses a non-contact sensor to digitize and measure human motion and posture.

“As the technique that digitizes and measures the human motion using the non-contact sensor, there is a motion capture technique that digitizes a human motion by attaching a marker to a joint or the like and processing information of the detected marker. Further, there is also a technique that extracts position information and skeleton information of a person by image processing and detects a behavior of the person such as walking and standing still. Further, a deep learning technique has developed, and it is possible to extract a plurality of skeletons of a person from an image captured by a monocular camera when a dedicated active sensor is used instead of a marker, and a posture can be digitally measured.

“As a device using these techniques, there is a device that processes a walking motion described in PTL 1. This device extracts a skeleton of a person, a position of a landing point, and movement track information to provide information for evaluating a walking state. The information for evaluating the walking state can be used for rehabilitation. For example, in the rehabilitation, coordinate information of each joint of a pedestrian can be extracted, and information such as a walking speed and a step length can be displayed without blurring.

“Further, there is a technique that digitizes and measures not only a motions and a posture of a person, such as walking and standing still, but also a daily activity. For example, in a human motion monitoring method and motion determination method described in PTL 2, information such as a motion and a position of a person can be extracted using a plurality of sensors, and it is possible to grasp daily activities of the elderly for care. Further, the information is visualized so that an abnormal behavior such as fall and slip is predicted and presented to a caregiver in accordance with position information and facility information. For example, when it is determined that an elderly person has moved to a place with a step, it is possible to display an assistance for moving on the step to the caregiver and prevent a risk.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “Technical Problem

“Conventionally, as an independence support system configured to improve the healthy life expectancy of the elderly, no proposal has been made regarding a system that considers ‘(1) to grasp and analyze ‘what can be done’ by the elderly with their physical functions, and (2) to maintain or improve the ability of physical functions so as to smoothly perform ‘what can be done”

“PTL 1 describes a method for facilitating evaluation of a motion and a posture such as walking of a person, but does not describe a method for maintaining or improving walking ability. Further, the daily activity of the person is measured in PTL 2, but there is no proposal for maintenance or improvement of the person’s health in order to improve the person’s health rather than the daily activity.

“That is, in the conventional measurement methods, information of a cared person is properly digitized such that a caregiver can easily take care of the cared person. This is because it is understood that the caregiver can provide support to the cared person if having the information. Here, it is an absolute requirement that the caregiver has expertise. It is difficult for the elderly to grasp their own physical states since they do not have expertise. It is more difficult for one to improve his/her own health. It is not possible to become independent by receiving training according to expert’s opinions as in the related art.

“An object of the present invention is to provide information for support of independent health management.

“Solution to Problem

“In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a physical function independence support device which transmits and receives information to and from one or more sensors that detect at least people, the physical function independence support device including: an acquisition unit that acquires physical state information indicating physical states of the people from the sensor; a physical function analysis unit that analyzes a change in physical functions of the people based on a time-series change of the physical state information acquired by the acquisition unit; and a physical function improvement proposing unit that generates and outputs physical function improvement proposal information indicating an improvement proposal of the physical function with respect to the change in the physical functions of the people based on an analysis result of the physical function analysis unit.

“Advantageous Effects of Invention

“According to the present invention, it is possible to provide the information for support of the independent health management.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A physical function independence support device, which transmits and receives information to and from one or more sensors that detect at least people, comprising: an acquisition unit that acquires physical state information indicating physical states of the people from the sensor; a physical function analysis unit that analyzes a change in physical functions of the people based on a time-series change of the physical state information acquired by the acquisition unit; and a physical function improvement proposing unit that generates and outputs physical function improvement proposal information indicating an improvement proposal of the physical function with respect to the change in the physical functions of the people based on an analysis result of the physical function analysis unit.

“2. The physical function independence support device according to claim 1, further comprising a feature extraction unit that extracts feature information, which is a feature, from the physical state information acquired by the acquisition unit, wherein the physical function analysis unit analyzes the change in the physical functions of the people based on a time-series change of the feature information extracted by the feature extraction unit.

“3. The physical function independence support device according to claim 2, further comprising a first database that stores the physical state information acquired by the acquisition unit in a time-series manner, wherein the physical function analysis unit analyzes the change in the physical functions of the people based on the feature information extracted by the feature extraction unit and the physical state information stored in the first database.

“4. The physical function independence support device according to claim 1, further comprising: a feature extraction unit that extracts feature information, which is a feature, from the physical state information acquired by the acquisition unit; a physical state analysis unit that analyzes physical states of the people based on the feature information extracted by the feature extraction unit; and a first database that stores an analysis result of the physical state analysis unit in a time-series manner as physical state analysis information, wherein the physical function analysis unit analyzes the change in the physical functions of the people based on the analysis result of the physical state analysis unit and the physical state analysis information stored in the first database.

“5. The physical function independence support device according to claim 4, wherein in the first database, information indicating a posture, a behavior, and physical burden/fatigue is stored in time-series manner as the physical state analysis information.

“6. The physical function independence support device according to claim 4, wherein the physical function analysis unit includes: a physical function improvement analysis unit that analyzes whether the physical functions of the people have been improved based on the analysis result of the physical state analysis unit and the physical state analysis information stored in the first database; a motor function analysis unit that analyzes a change in motor functions of the people based on the analysis result of the physical state analysis unit and the physical state analysis information stored in the first database; and a daily activity analysis unit that analyzes a change in daily activities of the people based on the analysis result of the physical state analysis unit and the physical state analysis information stored in the first database.

“7. The physical function independence support device according to claim 5, further comprising a second database that stores standard index information indicating a standard index of the physical state analysis information, wherein the physical function improvement proposing unit compares the analysis result of the physical function analysis unit with the standard index information, and generates the physical function improvement proposal information based on a comparison result.

“8. The physical function independence support device according to claim 7, wherein the physical function improvement proposing unit generates information to support health maintenance of the people as information belonging to the physical function improvement proposal information when information on the health maintenance of the people is included in the analysis result of the physical function analysis unit and the standard index information is stored in the second database.

“9. The physical function independence support device according to claim 7, wherein the physical function improvement proposing unit generates information to support exercise training of the people as information belonging to the physical function improvement proposal information when information on the exercise training of the people is included in the analysis result of the physical function analysis unit and the standard index information is stored in the second database.

“10. The physical function independence support device according to claim 7, wherein the physical function improvement proposing unit generates information to support work training of the people so as to belong to the physical function improvement proposal information when information on the work training of the people is included in the analysis result of the physical function analysis unit and the standard index information is stored in the second database.

“11. The physical function independence support device according to claim 4, further comprising a first display unit that generates image information on diagnosis and treatment of the people based on the physical state analysis information stored in the first database, and displays the generated image information on a display screen.

“12. The physical function independence support device according to claim 4, further comprising a second display unit that generates image information on physical state analysis results of the people based on the analysis result of the physical state analysis unit, and displays the generated image information on a display screen.

“13. The physical function independence support device according to claim 8, further comprising a third display unit that generates image information on physical function improvement proposals for the people is generated based on the physical function improvement proposal information generated by the physical function improvement proposing unit, and displays the generated image information on a display screen.

“14. The physical function independence support device according to claim 4, wherein the physical function analysis unit divides the people into a plurality of groups based on the analysis result of the physical state analysis unit and the physical state analysis information stored in the first database, and analyzes a change in physical functions of people who belong to each of the groups.

“15. A physical function independence support method for transmitting and receiving information to and from one or more sensors that detect at least people, the method comprising: an acquisition step of acquiring physical state information indicating physical states of the people from the sensor; a physical function analysis step of analyzing a change in physical functions of the people based on a time-series change of the physical state information acquired in the acquisition step; and a physical function improvement proposal step of generating and outputting physical function improvement proposal information indicating an improvement proposal of the physical function with respect to the change in the physical functions of the people based on an analysis result in the physical function analysis step.

“16. The physical function independence support device according to claim 9, further comprising a third display unit that generates image information on physical function improvement proposals for the people is generated based on the physical function improvement proposal information generated by the physical function improvement proposing unit, and displays the generated image information on a display screen.

“17. The physical function independence support device according to claim 10, further comprising a third display unit that generates image information on physical function improvement proposals for the people is generated based on the physical function improvement proposal information generated by the physical function improvement proposing unit, and displays the generated image information on a display screen.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: LI, Yuan; YUDA, Shinya; SUZUKI, Hideaki. Physical Function Independence Support Device Of Physical Function And Method Therefor. Filed March 30, 2018 and posted January 21, 2021. Patent URL: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220210020295%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20210020295&RS=DN/20210020295

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