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T.Gallelli,F.Tamburriello.Technologies help elderly people to win the fear of falling.“Servizi sociali oggi” issued by Maggioli Editore.October 2009.
Abstract:
CONFIDENCE: Technologies help elderly people to win the fear of falling.
Falls are common occurrences in elderly people worldwide and may have several adverse consequences, such as physical injuries and psychological distress, leading to decreased functioning and quality of life. Approximately half of the community-living older population experiences fear of falling. The experience of a recent fall is a known cause for the development of fear of falling, but fear of falling is also prevalent in non-fallers: it is plausible that factors related to the process of aging, such as physical frailty, contribute to the development of fear of falling as well. Several studies have indicated that people who are afraid of falling appear to enter a debilitating spiral of loss of confidence, restriction of physical activities and social participation, physical frailty, falls, and loss of independence.
In addition to the adverse consequences of fear of falling for those suffering from it, there are consequences for the public expenditure, because healthcare utilization increases. It is therefore important to reduce fear of falling by reversing the downward spiral by intervening in factors in the spiral, such as increasing physical functioning, or in predictors of those factors, such as improved medication use.
The need for effective falls-prevention strategies is thus evident.
The CONFIDENCE project, funded by the FP7-EU, aims to address these needs by developing a wireless system composed by a set of tags the end user has to wear, a set of sensors mounted on the walls, a base station and a PDA-like portable device. Communicating with the tags, the sensors on the wall detect the 3D position of the old person. The position is then transmitted to the base station which interpreter and analyse the data allowing to detects abnormalities (falls, dangerous situations, worsening conditions). The portable device is used to configure the system and to raise alarms: the system can automatically perform a phone call to a user defined set of phone numbers.
In the current version, CONFIDENCE is designed to work indoors but the technological results are expected to be very useful for a future outdoor use, extending its protection to virtually any moment of everyday’s life.
CONFIDENCE is mainly addressed to elderly people with no particular problems with their ADL but, the exploitation of the results of the project is considering also alternative scenarios such as helping controlling events into nursing homes or similar structures.
The goal of the system, and thus its name, is to maintain or build back the confidence of mature people fighting the fear of falling. At the same time, this is awaited to lower the costs of hospitalisations lowering public expenditure.
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