Abstract: A healthcare monitoring system for health caring and space monitoring that determines movements or existence of a care recipient by utilizing visual images to detect variation in shape of an optical pattern is provided. The system includes a light source unit, an image capturing unit, an image processing unit and a warning unit. By capturing the shape variation of the optical pattern emitted by the light source unit provided around a lying equipment via the image capturing unit, the system effectively determines motions of the care recipient lying on the lying equipment, such as motions of getting up, turning over and hand waving, in addition to lying flat, and detects activities of care providers or irrelevant persons around the lying equipment, thereby having an advantage that the activities of the care recipient lying on the lying equipment and the condition around the lying equipment can be monitored comprehensively.