Towards a social and context-aware multi-sensor fall detection and risk assessment platform

Abstract

For elderly people fall incidents are life-changing events that lead to degradation or even loss of autonomy. Current fall detection systems are not integrated and often associated with undetected falls and/or false alarms.In this paper, a social-and context-aware multi-sensor platform is presented, which integrates information gathered by a plethora of fall detection systems and sensors at the home of the elderly, by using a cloud-based solution, making use of an ontology. Within the ontology, both static and dynamic information is captured to model the situation of a specific patient and his/her (in)formal caregivers. This integrated contextual information allows to automatically and continuously assess the fall risk of the elderly, to more accurately detect falls and identify false alarms and to automatically notify the appropriate caregiver, e.g., based on location or their current task.The main advantage of the proposed platform is that multiple fall detection systems and sensors can be integrated, as they can be easily plugged in, this can be done based on the specific needs of the patient. systems and sensors leads to a more reliable system, with better accuracy. The proof of concept was tested with the use of the visualizer, which enables a better way to analyze the data flow within the back-end and with the use of the portable testbed, which is equipped with several different sensors.

Interdisciplinary Design of a Pervasive Fall Handling System

“…The resulting approach could be integrated in an overall platform [2] to combine the context-aware fall handling mechanism proposed in this paper with enhanced fall detection approaches that deliver fall context information.…”

Discovery of the Potential Role of Sensors in a Personal Emergency Response System: What Can We Learn from a Single Workshop?

“…• The results of this research will be integrated in the developed FallRisk system [3] 3 , where ontologies are used to describe the domain of continuous care and fall handling. Therefor, the choice was made to use the decision tree workshop approach as described in the ontology co-design method.…”

“…By taking pervasive and context-aware information and data into account [2], [3], it is possible to make the PERS system and the incident handling process more flexible. This also would improve the quality of care and moreover the quality of life of older adults.…”

The OCarePlatform: A context-aware system to support independent living

“…Previous publications focussed on the use cases where the OCareCloudS system and OCarePlatform can be used, namely in meeting the daily needs of residents and caregivers in home care [26] and handling falls using multiple sensors and context [27].…”