A wearable patient monitoring device in a patient monitoring system includes motion sensors generating sensor output signals in response to sensed patient motion, and a processor that processes the sensor output signals according to a template-matching monitoring process that includes (1) detecting occurrence of a first event of a multi-event movement based on first values of the sensor output signals, the multi-event movement having a finite-state-machine (FSM) representation as a sequence of states corresponding to events and expected values of the sensor output signals of the multi-event movement, (2) detecting occurrence of remaining events of the multi-event movement based on a sequence of subsequent values of the sensor output signals, and (3) upon detecting a last event of the multi-event movement, generating an output signal indicating detection of the patient performing the multi-event movement. Communications circuitry communicates the detection to a higher-level computerized device of the patient monitoring system.