Introduction: Sudden, serious life-threatening situations happen even on general wards. Current technologies are working with sensors which are attached to every patient, which is a source of failures and false alarms. The goal of this review was to assess the state of the art of potential techniques for contactless patient monitoring in general wards.

Methods: The MEDLINE database was used for literature retrieval.

Results: 453 unique references screened, 34 research articles met inclusion criteria. Ballistocardiography, Radar and Thermography technologies are the most widely tested techniques. The Majority of the studies are done in a laboratory setting. No study shows the feasibility of one contactless monitoring technology over the distance required for monitoring rooms.

Conclusion: Today no technology is feasible. A combination of technologies may become feasible in 10 or more years, until then we have to think about ethical and privacy issues of these pervasive technologies.