Novel wearable technologies for assessing dynamic balance and risk of falling

在老年人以及神经肌肉控制缺陷患者中，与跌倒相关的损伤与相当高的发病率、过早的长期护理和死亡率有关。因此，由于跌倒相关伤害的经济负担和由此产生的对高危人群生活质量的影响，在日常生活中预防跌倒对加拿大医疗保健系统至关重要。这项研究计划的长期目标是开发可穿戴技术，用于实时评估日常活动中跌倒的风险。这些技术将在许多方面有助于减少跌倒的发生率，例如1)在跌倒发生之前提醒护理人员注意用户的高风险动作，或者2)向用户提供关于如何通过改变高风险动作模式来防止跌倒的反馈（例如，可以在治疗培训计划中使用）。为此，本研究计划将实现两个技术目标：

Fall-related injuries are associated with considerable morbidity, premature long-term nursing care, and mortality in the elderly as well as individuals with neuromuscular control deficits. Therefore, fall prevention during daily life is of crucial interest for the Canadian healthcare system due to the economic burden of fall-related injuries and resultant impacts on the quality of life for at-risk individuals. The long-term objective of this research program is to develop wearable technologies for assessing the risk of falling in real-time during daily activities. These technologies would contribute in many ways to reducing the incidence of falling, such as 1) alerting caregivers to high-risk motions of the user prior to an incidence of falling, or 2) providing the user with feedback on how to prevent falls by alteration of the high-risk motion patterns (for example, that can be utilized within therapeutic training programs). To this end, two technical goals will be achieved in this research program: