Phase II STTR: Portable Device for Telecare Monitoring of Elderly People

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议通过开发一种精确的可穿戴传感器技术来解决两个重要的公共健康生活质量问题——老年人的跌倒预防和虚弱，该技术可以更准确地表征身体活动、跌倒风险和虚弱的早期指标。在这个STTR项目的第一阶段，我们开发了一个独特的平台（PAMSysTM：身体活动监测系统），用于客观测量日常生活中的身体活动，并展示了PAMSysTM平台的概念证明，用于客观评估老年人自发的日常身体活动，跌倒风险和活动组织。在该项目的第二阶段，我们将提出另外两项临床研究，以进一步评估PAMSysTM平台的临床应用，并继续我们的研发工作，将PAMSysTM平台转变为临床可靠的低成本工具，用于远程筛查跌倒风险和早期发现虚弱。我们将利用非侵入性身体活动远程监测技术，加强对跌倒/虚弱风险的早期诊断和远程监测。利用这项技术，我们将识别出表明跌倒风险的模式，并对处于危险中的老年人日益重要的老年虚弱综合征进行早期发现和干预。此外，它将启用

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to address two important public health quality of life concerns - fall prevention and frailty in older adults by developing an accurate wearable sensor technology that more accurately characterizes physical activity, risk of falling and early indicators of frailty. In Phase I of this STTR project, we developed a unique platform (PAMSysTM: Physical Activity Monitoring System) for objective measurement of physical activity during everyday living and demonstrated the proof of concept of the PAMSysTM platform for objective assessment of spontaneous daily physical activity, risk of falling and activity organization among older adults. In Phase II of the project, we propose two additional clinical studies to further evaluate the clinical applications of the PAMSysTM platform and to continue our research and development efforts to transform the PAMSysTM platform into a clinimetrically sound low-cost tool for remote screening of risk of falling and early detection of frailty. We will enhance our technology for early diagnosis and remote monitoring of the risk of falling/frailty using non-invasive physical activity telemonitoring. Using this technology we will identify patterns indicative of risk of falling and for early detection and intervention of the increasingly important geriatric syndrome of frailty in at-risk elders. In addition, it will enable remote and continuous screening of the risk of falling during activities of daily living, supportin autonomy and quality of life, and limiting the need for burdensome face to face clinical assessment. The proposed technology can also provide an objective tool to evaluate physical activity decrements and to help prescribe and measure the effects of rehabilitation and treatment strategies on reductions in the risk of falling based on the relative efficacy of clinimetrically relevant interventions. Taken together, these considerations support the urgent need to: a) develop instrumentation for objective assessment of the frequency, duration and organization of physical activity among older adults at risk of falling or developing frailty, and ) develop instrumentation that is ambulatory and low burden, thus allowing the assessment of naturalistic patient movement in everyday life (outside of the artificial lab environment). We will pursue these goals by: a) investigating the degree to which the parameters gathered by the PAMSysTM platform are sensitive to changes in daily physical activity that occur as a result of frailty, b) by examining the degree to which changes in PAMSys-derived variables of activity and movement correspond with changes in geriatric- assessed functional capacity measures, and self-reported disability, history of fall, risk of falling, and frailty; c) by improving current sotware algorithms to allow assessment of fine-grained movement parameters sensitive to early diagnosis of frailty and risk of falling, and e) by modifying the design of our sensor for real-tim wireless data transfer.