When my late father moved into the nursing home they stuck him in the basement which had long hallways and at the time was mostly vacant. He had a walker and it didn't dawn on us it would ever be a problem.
But then he had a fall and couldn't get up. Anywhere else in the facility a staff member would have found him within five minutes. After a half hour and multiple failed attempts to stand he remembered his cell phone and called a Lodge member who took another twenty minutes to get there and help him up.
He didn't call me because he didn't want me to know he fell. But his Lodge buddy ratted him out to me and I was able to get him on a list for the first available room upstairs. A device like this could have alerted someone at the facility that he had fallen, this is a very big deal and it's going to save lives.
It's sad but most facilities are like this. If you want your elderly parents to have assistance, either move them in with you or hire private help and verify that they are doing what you want. Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die.
>Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die
In some countries, elderly care facilities are being run by mob like organizations, as they are insanely profitable, draining the elders, their children and the government of funds simultaneously, while throwing PR to look like saints. Insane.
It's crazy, and I assume this business will boom further in the west with our ever increasing aging population. It'll be the new gold rush if it isn't there already.
It runs so well because in the west folks more or less hate their parents: When they become inconvenient (read: need care), they are put away and politely ignored until they die. That's why those places are so hostile to their inhabitants: They know nobody cares about them enough to really do anything about it.
I doubt most westerners hate their parents. I think the western grind removes any free time for people to look after their aging parents, hell, most barely have time for their kids, let alone their parents as well.
You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone - I wrote such an app in 2009, it presented a 3D interface to the user to show them it was working, you could attach it to your belt and safely walk around anywhere, and if it detected a fall it would send SMS alerts, make a sound, etc. I had users that swore by this app, it actually protected mutliple end-users (elderly, sufferers of MS, etc.) and was very well received by the users who trusted it.
The 6dof Gyroscope/Accelerometer sensors in most phones are perfectly adequate for the task.
It worked very well until it was removed from the Play Store a few years ago, but you can still find the APK floating around (https://apkfun.com/down_Fall-Detector.html) - although there are a lot more competing apps like this, it was actually one of the first to do reliable fall detection and reporting on Android ...
Main thing about Fall Detectors: TEST them. Really, really test them. You'd be surprised how well some algorithms work and how poorly they can perform if you do a 'slow fall', etc.
>You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone
Obviously we could do this since phones had accelerometers, so I'm not sure if you read the the product description, but these radar sensors allow you to do fall detection WITHOUT having to clip a phone or any other sensor onto people.
Way, way more convenient and better for privacy. I can't imagine grandma will take her phone with her in her pijamas when she goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, just to have her fall status sensed.
I disagree that this is more convenient/better for privacy.
With the app: the user already has a cell phone, and doesn't need to buy anything else to get protected from falls. No proprietary hardware, just an app to install and he's safe. Plus, he'll always have his phone on him and can call/be called whenever deemed necessary by his caregivers.
There are no privacy implications whatsoever, because the app only reports to the people it is configured to report to - by SMS and Twitter, as well as local audio alerts.
BTW, I built this app for a company that had already developed hardware-based fall detectors, over ten years ago - this is not by any means a new market - which functioned perfectly every time (not needing mmWave) .. and which they determined were not popular because it required extra proprietary/special hardware, which most elderly in this market are suspicious of .. but given the choice to install a Fall Detector on their existing cell phone, which they carry around anyway as a safety net, was a no brainer ..
>Do you always take your phone with you when you go to the bathroom half asleep in the middle of the night with no pockets in your pijamas?
You do if your life depends on it. Also, if your family has put a cell phone on your bathrobe specifically for the purpose - even doing this is cheaper than buying special hardware just because it has mmWave.
> Nor will she be ok with me belting a phone onto her at all times.
But belting proprietary, un-auditable electronics to her or installing it in her private space is okay, right ..
The Fall Detector/home medical metrics industry is huge, and plenty of people are using cell-phone based Fall Detectors to protect their family. This doesn't require mmWave, one bit.
You clearly don't know how stubborn (old) people can be even when it comes to their own safety. People should also wear bike helmets in my country, as their lives depends on it, yet few actually do. Moving the sensor off the people and onto the room removes this issue.
> Also, if your family has put a cell phone on your bathrobe specifically for the purpose
Nobody in my family wears bathrobes and I'm pretty sure almost nobody in my country does (BTW, is this a US thing?)
What if you forget to take your phone with you when you get out of bed for whatever reason? Or what if you fall out of bed before getting your smartphone? This is a flawed solution from the start.
>But belting proprietary electronics to her is okay, right ..
You clearly did not read the product description. You don't belt this sensor to the person you want to monitor but instead you install it in the room you're monitoring and the radar sensor detects when anyone in the room is falling down. That's the game changer right there.
Please read the product description and maybe you'll reconsider your stance.
>Nobody in my family wears bathrobes and I'm pretty sure nobody in my country does (is this an american thing?)
Kind of an odd supposition, but okay .. I'm guessing you don't have much experience with the elderly and frail in care facilities, where it is pretty much policy to be robed when you get out of bed.
All of the elderly in my family (Europeans) use a robe when needed. Its not as 'rare' as you might think.
But fair enough, your point is that this mmWave-based fall detector doesn't need to be attached to the user. This means the end user is only going to be protected for as long as they are in the 'fall detection zone jail', alas. This is more of a prison than you might think - especially for elderly/care-needing individuals for whom mobility (outside, in a garden) is essential to their care and recovery .. wearing a device gives the individual far, far greater freedom over that of a 'zoned safety area' provided by a fixed-location installation ..
And for this reason, I simply don't agree that this mmWave thing is an improvement. It certainly is more convenient to care-givers, but its fixed-place requirement is a net loss for elderly/care.
>I'm guessing you don't have much experience with the elderly and frail in care facilities, where it is pretty much policy to be robed when you get out of bed.
Except my grandma is at her apartment and that's where I wish to monitor her but in a private and dignified way, not like cattle with an tracking bracelet, and she wears no bathrobe in her apartment either (Eastern Europe things).
>But fair enough, your point is that this mmWave-based fall detector doesn't need to be attached to the user.
It is not my point, it's literally in the article/product description, which you did not read, and is the whole selling point of this widget. Just stick it to the ceiling and it detects anyone falling in that room. Simple. No need for invasive tracking solutions attached to people at all times.
> This is more of a prison than you might think
This sensor does not stop you from going outside where grandma can take a phone in her purse and is also safe as there are always people around to call for help if anything would happen vs in her apartment where she is always alone.
Nothing wrong with "please take this wearable sensor (which might be a phone) with you if you go outdoors" and still making the indoors safe for occasions where the person at risk of falling fails to prepare like for a minor expedition. It's not either/or at all.
This is a really bizarre chain of comments to me. It's great that you're proud of your work, but an external module is a clearly superior product. First, not everyone has a mobile phone at all. And you can't wear it everywhere you go, especially not in 2009 when the battery might have lasted a few hours at most. You still can't take it in the shower with you. You can't "wear" it if you're not wearing clothing at all. Even newer mobile phones with longer battery life still need to be set down somewhere to charge every now and again and can't stay clipped to your hip permanently. And you inherently need a mobile phone per user. An external module can detect every person in a room falling. They don't need individual sensors. Care facilities and at-home care personnel can use this when people in their care and not themselves are the ones at risk. And this things costs 1/30 of a mobile phone.
The only claim I can agree with is an app-based fall sensor is a good option for people who already have mobile phones and don't trust external modules and would prefer to just use something they already have. You seem to have concluded this is widespread based on your users telling you they felt this way. You have to understand your users are not a random sample of all people at risk of falling. They're very obviously people who had mobile phones and thought something like this was a good enough idea to try.
But then he had a fall and couldn't get up. Anywhere else in the facility a staff member would have found him within five minutes. After a half hour and multiple failed attempts to stand he remembered his cell phone and called a Lodge member who took another twenty minutes to get there and help him up.
He didn't call me because he didn't want me to know he fell. But his Lodge buddy ratted him out to me and I was able to get him on a list for the first available room upstairs. A device like this could have alerted someone at the facility that he had fallen, this is a very big deal and it's going to save lives.