New Technology Detects Falls By Seniors

Falls by the Elderly Aided by the Wireless Network

Senior Safety Issue:  Falls When Seniors Are Alone

As our body ages, we naturally become less stable on our feet. Our equilibrium grows less secure. Our muscles become less firm. Our eyesight gets less keen. The possibility of falls, either by losing our balance or tripping, becomes much greater. The bodily damage from a fall can also be much greater. A fallen senior may not even be able to get back to their feet. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up…”

The good news: cutting edge technology is being developed every day geared towards helping seniors in their daily lives. This includes technologies to help seniors should they any falls when they are alone.

Wireless Network Could Aid in Senior Falls and Detection

On September 9, 2013, the University of Utah reported that electrical engineers at the school have developed a network of wireless sensors that can detect when a person falls. The monitoring technology could be linked to a service that would call for emergency help. All of this would be available without requiring seniors to wear monitoring devices.

The University of Utah electrical engineers, Brad Mager and Neal Patwari, constructed a fall-detection system using a two-level array of radio-frequency sensors placed around the perimeter of a room. These sensors were placed at two heights that corresponded to someone standing or lying down. These sensors are similar to those used in home wireless networks. As each sensor transmits to another, anyone standing – or falling – inside the network alters the path of signals sent between each pair of sensors.

A device like this would be a great advantage to seniors. It does not require them to wear it. For people age 65 and older, falls are a leading cause of injury and death. Most fall-detection devices monitor a person’s posture or require a person to push a button to call for help. However, these devices must be worn at all times. A 2008 study showed 80 percent of elderly adults who owned call buttons didn’t use the device when they had any serious falls. The reason for this is simple. The senior was not wearing the fall-detection device at the time of their fall.

“Ideally, the environment itself would be able to detect any falls and send an alert to a caregiver” says Patwari, senior author of the study and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah. “What’s remarkable about our system is that a person doesn’t need to remember to wear a device.”

More importantly, the system is programmed to detect whether a fall was indeed a dangerous one, rather than someone simply lying down on the floor. Researchers conducted a series of experiments measuring the amount of time that elapsed when a person fell, sat down, or laid down on the ground. This gave researchers a time threshold for accurately detecting a fall. This information was fed back into algorithms used to determine whether a given event was a fall or one of the other benign activities.

The bad news is this wireless network is not yet available on the market. The good news is Brad Mager presented the new fall-detection system recently at the 24th Annual Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications. The team plans to develop this proof-of-concept technology into a commercial product through a startup company called Xandem Technology.

If you are a caregiver looking for a break or time away from caregiving, there are options available to you. You may want to consider an Adult Day Program or a Senior Living Community that offers respite care. For help locating one in your area, visit AlternativesforSeniors.com or call (888) WE-ASSIST.

 

Blog Date: September 16, 2013

Writer: Ryan Allen