Elder fall detection technique developed

University of Missouri (MU) Health Care is an academic health care system that provides comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services.

The purpose of this study was to test the implementation of a fall detection and “rewind” privacy-protecting technique to not only detect but prevent falls from occurring in hospitalized patients. Kinect sensors were placed in six hospital rooms in a step-down unit and data were continuously logged.

This technological approach enables conducting quality improvement root-cause analysis of patient falls to “see” what happened leading up to the actual fall. It also offers future research opportunities for real-time staff notification of potential falls or increasing fall risk.

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