Increasing fall risk awareness using wearables: A fall risk awareness protocol

Abstract

Each year about a third of elderly aged 65 or older experience a fall. Many of these falls may have been avoided if fall risk assessment and prevention tools where available in a daily living situation. We identify what kind of information is relevant for doing fall risk assessment and prevention using wearable sensors in a daily living environment by investigating current research, distinguishing between prospective and context-aware fall risk assessment and prevention. Based on our findings, we propose a fall risk awareness protocol as a fall prevention tool integrating both wearables and ambient sensing technology into a single platform.

Keywords: Daily living; Fall prevention; Fall prevention tool; Fall risk assessment; Fall risk awareness protocol; Sensor fusion; Wearable sensors.