Abstract: The worldwide problem of population aging is becoming increasingly critical. To avoid accidents involving the elderly living alone, the study of the daily activities of the elderly using recognition and monitoring algorithms has become a research hotspot. This paper proposes an action recognition approach using a low-resolution infrared sensor. The proposed approach uses an infrared sensor to collect temperature distribution data in the detection area, and then processes the temperature distribution data, extracting multiple features in the four dimensions of time, temperature, deformation, and trajectory. Finally, the K-nearest neighbors algorithm is used to identify the five poses of "walking, " "bending, " "sitting, ""standing, " and "falling." Experimental results demonstrate that the average accuracy can reach 97% and that the accuracy for falling is 100%.