EverWrist: A Novel Electronic Fall Monitor for Seniors

说明(申请人提供)：老年人中的跌倒和跌倒相关的伤害比中风更常见，可能会产生同样严重的后果；它们是一个严重的医疗保健问题，伴随着大量相关的发病率和总体灵活性和功能的降低。65岁及以上的成年人中，每年有30%的人摔倒，通常是危险的闭合性头部损伤和长骨骨折。与跌倒有关的伤害是急诊室就诊的头号原因，也是老年人与伤害有关的死亡的主要原因。研究表明，一半的老年人跌倒后无法在没有人帮助的情况下站起来，通常会在焦虑和/或疼痛中躺很长时间才被发现。大多数老年人更喜欢过独立的生活方式，很少有照顾者干预。然而，许多老年人由于他们的健康状况而身体虚弱，容易出现失衡；他们面临着患上 跌倒了，贝内特将失去安全网。Barron Associates建议开发EverWrist跌倒监测系统。EverWrist将使用一种新颖的、受专利保护的范例来检测跌倒，并将通过向控制台单元发送无线信号来自动召唤援助，控制台单元向按优先顺序排列的照顾者名单发送警报，确保人类收到警报。EverWrist显示器上的一个按钮还可以让佩戴者发起个人紧急警报呼叫，并在不需要帮助的情况下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医疗保健人员特别感兴趣的濒临跌倒事件，以确定需要进一步干预以避免未来跌倒的个人。以前市面上销售的大多数坠落探测器 它们都是腰围的；因此，它们不是真正的全天候监视器，因为它们在睡眠时不能舒适地佩戴，洗澡或换衣服时必须脱下。这些秋季监视器的相对较大的尺寸使它们变得引人注目，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过于简单，导致错误警报和/或遗漏检测的比率高得令人无法接受。为了克服早期设备的问题，EverWrist系统将采用一种正在申请专利的传感技术，大大提高检测坠落的准确性和可靠性。新方法将以一种常见的、为社会所接受的配饰的形式进行生产，使其佩戴起来既谨慎又不显眼。在最近研究的激励和支持下，一种新的算法方法将被纳入监视器中，以检测近距离坠落事件，并将这些事件与实际坠落和日常生活中的其他活动区分开来。该方法挑战了现有的坠落和险些坠落事件检测范例。由此产生的EverWrist系统将在市场需求方面处于有利地位(即需要一个可以全天候佩戴的人体工程学监视器)。

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).