Unobtrusive Monitoring of Physical Weakness: A Simulated Approach

Aging and chronic conditions affect older adults' daily lives, making early detection of developing health issues crucial. Weakness, common in many conditions, alters physical movements and daily activities subtly. However, detecting such changes can be challenging due to their subtle and gradual nature. To address this, we employ a non-intrusive camera sensor to monitor individuals' daily sitting and relaxing activities for signs of weakness. We simulate weakness in healthy subjects by having them perform physical exercise and observing the behavioral changes in their daily activities before and after workouts. The proposed system captures fine-grained features related to body motion, inactivity, and environmental context in real-time while prioritizing privacy. A Bayesian Network is used to model the relationships between features, activities, and health conditions. We aim to identify specific features and activities that indicate such changes and determine the most suitable time scale for observing the change. Results show 0.97 accuracy in distinguishing simulated weakness at the daily level. Fine-grained behavioral features, including non-dominant upper body motion speed and scale, and inactivity distribution, along with a 300-second window, are found most effective. However, individual-specific models are recommended as no universal set of optimal features and activities was identified across all participants.