A recent report from ICT Results reveals interesting information about a safety net for fall-prone elderly, with trials being conducted at three different sites: the Netherlands, Germany and Israel.
Falls are the main cause of injuries among elderly people, but until now doctors have had few ways of effectively monitoring and counteracting mobility problems among patients. I think that any of us who’ve seen an elderly person in the weeks and months following a hip fracture, realize just how devastating a blow it is to one’s self esteem and to his or her general health following the long-term mobility problems resulting from the trauma. And as Europe’s population ages, we expect to see more of this kind of trauma.
The solution, developed by a team of researchers led by Lorenzo Chiari, a researcher at the University of Bologna, Italy, as a part of the EU-funded SensAction-AAL project, involves using a wearable, wireless enabled device equipped with motion sensors to monitor people susceptible to falls. Essentially, it’s a wearable iPhone without all the shiny gadgets, that can sense when the person falls down and doesn’t get up. In that case, it raises an emergency SMS or e-mail alert to family members and/or health officials.
Besides alerting caregivers in the event of an emergency, the SensAction-AAL system also provides doctors with long-term information about patients’ mobility, including objectively reporting falls that may otherwise go unreported, masking potentially serious health problems.
Improving Quality of Life
In trials conducted with sufferers of Parkinson’s disease at three different sites in the Netherlands, Germany and Israel, test users were overwhelmingly positive in their evaluation of the system, underscoring particularly how increased monitoring can help their self-confidence and, in turn, improve their quality of life. I hope that in the near future we’ll hear of further developments in the commercialization of this tool, that can increase the quality of life, and probably save lives as well.
Source: ICT Results
SensAction-AAL
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