Wearable Wireless Fall Detection And Mobility Measurement For The Elderly

Authors: Grgo Čupić, Roko Krpetić, Milan Listeš

Abstract:
Rapid technological progress has contributed to the development of a wide range of telemonitoring systems which make treatment and management of chronic diseases as well as danger prevention possible. Elderly people (persons above the age of 60), whose number according to the statistics is constantly growing, belong to the highest risk group. One out of three persons belonging to this group suffers a fall during daily activities. Timely fall detection could reduce fall consequences or even death rate. Also, mobility rate is an objective indicator of elderly people's health status thus continuous long term monitoring can give the most objective information about mobility and provide objective information for doctors. This work describes system for fall detection and mobility measuring which continuously measures and stores mobility data and alarms a person in case of fall or prolonged inactivity.
Wearable part of the system (sensor node) is small, wireless and meant to be belt worn. It consists of microcontroller, three-axis accelerometer and transmitter. Sensor node communicates with receiver through ZigBee protocol and the receiver is connected to PC via USB connection. PC runs the software which calculates mobility level, detects fall, activity or prolonged activity using three-axis acceleration data. In the case of fall detection or prolonged inactivity, the application will alarm another person via SMS. All the results are stored into log files. Application can also graphically display mobility level in real-time or in past.
System is not expensive (less than 50$), it is small, light weighted and easy to use. It can be used by elderly people who live on their own, or by those who live in the nursing homes. System provides more space to elderly people in their daily activities and thereby improves life quality and reduces stress level to both elderly persons and those who take care of them (relatives or medical staff).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• elderly
• telemedicine
• wireless
• wearable
• accelerometer
• fall detection
• mobility measurement
• Activity monitoring
• Arduino
• Zigbee

[gcupic]

Hi Nader!

Thank you for the interest in our project. It's very satisfying knowing other people appreciate our work. Unfortunately I must inform you that the windows application seen in the video was soleley devoloped for the purpose of the project hence it is not available for any other use other than shown in the video. I am not aware of an similiar general purpose application of the similiar functionality available for public. If you have any other inquirements, please do not hesitate to ask!

[swativittal]

Hi, this is neat work.. I am working on something similar, although I am trying to use ANT protocol. Could you tell me which accelerometer , microcontroller and transmitter/ receiver you have used here?

[shahsjournal]

Note: I don't have an audio output right now - so, I don't know what is being said.

Fantastic application. However, I'd like to learn more about how you differentiate between someone just sitting down quickly and a fall.

Power-wise, this is terrible. Why don't you set a threshold and transmit only when an alert is triggered.

[Nader2020]

Hi,

Great work I like it.

Can you till me pleas the name of the program in this clip if you don't mind?

I will appreciate that.