Ambianic Fall Detector

For many adults, one of the most difficult decisions to make is how to care for an elderly parent or relative that needs assistance. The AARP has found that almost 90% of folks over the age of 65 prefer to remain independent by living out their golden years at home.

Whether living alone or with family members, elderly parents need constant monitoring. Why? This is because as they age, their risk to potentially life-threatening accidents increases.

In fact, a slew of researches reveal that seniors are more prone to fall than other age classes. According to the US National Council on Aging:

• One in four Americans aged 65+ falls each year.
• Every 11 seconds, an older adult is treated in the emergency room for a fall; every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall.
• Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults.
• Falls result in more than 2.8 million injuries treated in emergency departments annually, including over 800, 000 hospitalizations and more than 27, 000 deaths.
• In 2015, the total cost of fall injuries was $50 billion. Medicare and Medicaid shouldered 75% of these costs.

Medical alert systems were introduced into the home healthcare space to help prevent medical complications for independent seniors.

At present, the global medical alert system, which includes a variety of landline and mobile personal emergency response systems and standalone or wearable devices is witnessing rapid growth.

Examples of medical alert systems.

Some medical alert systems include a fall detection feature. They generally comprise two major components: cell phones and wearable devices. Once the wearable device detects fall, it sends an alert to the cell phone, and then the cell phone notifies the emergency contacts the user selected.

While these systems are recommended by AARP and caregivers, a recent study found that only 8% of seniors believe they need a medical device. Most are unsure or unwilling to wear one:

This is where the Ambianic Fall Detection remote monitoring system can help. Ambianic is an open-source software project, which allows the developer community to take part in solving the global challenge of healthy ageing by offering round the clock surveillance of elderly relatives or patients and instant alert to family caregivers in the event of an accident or fall.

A recent publication in Nature discusses the potential of ambient contactless sensors in healthcare. A systematic review found that ambient sensors can detect falls with 97% accuracy vs 96% for wearables.

What is Ambianic Fall Detection?

Ambianic Fall Detection is based on computer vision technology. It receives video feed from a wall mounted camera, then uses PoseNet to detect a person’s body vectors and determines whether there is a rapid downward motion between frames. When a fall is detected, it alerts family caregivers and presents them with contextual information to make an informed and timely decision. Helping a fallen senior within the first golden hour drastically reduces fatalities.