EverWrist: A Novel Electronic Fall Monitor for Seniors

EverWrist：一款适合老年人的新型电子跌倒监视器

• 批准号: 8520139
• 负责人: B EUGENE PARKER
• 金额: $ 52.56万
• 依托单位: BARRON ASSOCIATES, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-15 至 2016-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8520139
• 关键词: Acceleration; Accident and Emergency department; Adoption; Adult; Adult Children; Agreement; Air Pressure; Algorithms; Ambulatory Care; Anxiety; Area; Bathing; Bilateral; Biological Neural Networks; Caregivers; Caring; Cessation of life; Closed head injuries; Clothing; Communities; Congresses; Detection; Devices; Dimensions; Elderly; Electronics; Emergency Situation; Ensure; Equilibrium; Esthetics; Event; FDA approved; Face; Family; Forearm; Fracture; Frail Elderly; Future; Head; Health; Health Personnel; Health Status; Healthcare; Height; Hour; Human; Independent Living; Individual; Injury; Institute of Medicine (U.S.); Intervention; Laboratories; Lead; Left; Legal patent; Life; Life Style; Marketing; Measurement; Methodology; Metric; Military Personnel; Mind; Monitor; Morbidity - disease rate; Outpatients; Pain; Performance; Phase; Positioning Attribute; Process; Provider; Radio; Reporting; Research; Research Infrastructure; Retirement; Sales; Signal Transduction; Site; Sleep; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Social isolation; Stroke; System; Techniques; Testing; Time; Validation; Visit; Wireless Technology; Work; Wrist; base; commercialization; community living; cost; data exchange; design; detector; digital; ergonomics; experience; fall risk; falls; fear of falling; high risk; human old age (65+); human subject; improved; interest; kinematics; long bone; monitoring device; mortality; novel; novel strategies; peace; phase 2 study; prototype; public health relevance; research and development; research study; safety net; sensor; success; telehealth; usability; user-friendly; vector

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Falls and fall-related injuries in seniors are more common than strokes and can have equally serious consequences; they represent a signicant health care problem with a substantial associated morbidity and reduction in overall mobility and function. Thirty percent of adults 65 years and older fall each year, often suering dangerous closed head injury and long bone fractures. Fall-related injuries are the number one reason for emergency room visits and the leading cause of injury-related deaths among elderly adults. Studies have shown that half of elderly fallers cannot get up without assistance after they have fallen, often lying in anxiety and/or pain for far too long until discovered. The majority of eldes prefer to lead an independent lifestyle, with a minimum of caregiver intervention. Many seniors, however, are frail and suer from imbalance as a result of their health status; they are at risk for falls and would benet from having a safety net in place. Barron Associates proposes to develop the EverWrist fall monitoring system. The EverWrist will employ a novel, patent-protected paradigm to detect falls, and will automatically summon assistance by sending a wireless signal to a console unit that delivers an alert to a prioritized list of caregivers, ensuring that it is received by a human being. A button on the EverWrist monitor will also enable wearers to initiate personal emergency alert calls and to cancel an alert call in progress if assistance is no needed. Additionally, the EverWrist monitor will be able to detect and log near-fall events, which are of particular interest to health care personnel to identify individuals in need of further intervention to avoid future falls. The majority of previously available commercial fall detectors were waist-mounted; as such, they were not true all-day monitors, since they could not be worn comfortably during sleep and had to be removed to bathe or change clothes. The relatively large size of these fall monitors caused them to be conspicuous, resulting in very low adoption rates. Additionally, the fall detection algorithms used in nearly all previously-available devices were simplistic, leading to an unacceptably high rate of false alarms and/or missed detections. To overcome the problems of earlier devices, a patent-pending sensing technique will be utilized in the EverWrist system that greatly improves accuracy and reliability in detecting falls. The new approach will be productized in the form of a commonly worn and socially acceptable accessory, making it discreet and unobtrusive to wear. A novel algorithmic methodology, motivated and supported by recent research, will be incorporated into the monitor to detect near-fall events and discriminate these events from actual falls and other activities of daily livig. The approach challenges existing paradigms for fall and near-fall event detection. The resulting EverWrist system will be well positioned in terms of market demand (i.e., need for an ergonomic monitor that can be worn 24/7).

描述（由申请人提供）：老年人跌倒和跌倒相关伤害比中风更常见，并且可能产生同样严重的后果；它们是一个严重的医疗保健问题，伴随着大量相关发病率以及整体活动能力和功能的下降。每年有 30% 的 65 岁及以上成年人跌倒，经常遭受危险的闭合性头部损伤和长骨骨折。跌倒相关伤害是老年人就诊的第一大原因，也是导致老年人因伤害死亡的主要原因。研究表明，一半的老年跌倒者在跌倒后如果没有帮助就无法站起来，往往在焦虑和/或疼痛中躺得太久直到被发现。 大多数老年人更喜欢独立的生活方式，尽量减少护理人员的干预。然而，许多老年人由于健康状况而身体虚弱，身体失衡。他们面临风险 跌倒，并会受益于安全网的到位。 Barron Associates 提议开发 EverWrist 跌倒监测系统。 EverWrist将采用一种新颖的、受专利保护的范例来检测跌倒，并通过向控制台单元发送无线信号来自动呼叫援助，该控制台单元向优先考虑的护理人员列表发送警报，确保人类能够接收到该警报。 EverWrist 监视器上的按钮还允许佩戴者发起个人紧急警报呼叫，并在不需要帮助时取消正在进行的警报呼叫。此外，EverWrist 监视器将能够检测和记录接近跌倒事件，这对于医护人员特别感兴趣，可以识别需要进一步干预的个人，以避免未来跌倒。 大多数以前可用的商用跌倒探测器 挂在腰间；因此，它们并不是真正的全天监控器，因为它们在睡眠时佩戴不舒适，必须在洗澡或换衣服时摘下。这些坠落监视器的尺寸相对较大，导致它们很显眼，导致采用率非常低。此外，几乎所有以前可用的设备中使用的跌倒检测算法都很简单，导致误报和/或漏检率高得令人无法接受。 为了克服早期设备的问题，EverWrist 系统将采用正在申请专利的传感技术，大大提高检测跌倒的准确性和可靠性。新方法将以一种普遍佩戴且为社会所接受的配饰的形式产品化，使其佩戴起来谨慎且不引人注目。受最近研究的启发和支持，一种新颖的算法方法将被纳入监测器中，以检测接近跌倒事件并将这些事件与实际跌倒和其他日常活动区分开来。该方法挑战了跌倒和接近跌倒事件检测的现有范例。由此产生的 EverWrist 系统将很好地满足市场需求（即需要可以 24/7 佩戴的人体工学显示器）。