Patent ID: 7463157

Claim:
Method for recognizing and/or detecting impairment and/or inattention of a person by detecting and evaluating head movements of the person on the basis of at least one component, the at least one component being at east one of three head rotation components, pitch, yaw, roll, and three head translation components, each in one of three orthogonal directions, the method comprising the following steps: calculating within at least one predetermined time interval an actual density pattern of the at least one component in a form of an actual distribution of numbers of samples of the at least one component between at least one of a normal region and a normal region center point, which includes a peak of the density pattern, and a plurality of pre-set outer normal regions surrounding the at least one of the normal region and normal region center point; comparing the actual density pattern with a reference density pattern of the at least one component in a form of a reference distribution of samples of the at least one component in the at least one of the normal region and normal region center point; and evaluating a difference between at least one one of actual and reference patterns and actual and reference distributions and outputting a signal if the difference exceeds a predetermined value.