| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 醫學工程研究所 === 98 === Fall is the primary cause of accidents for elderly people and often results in serious injury and health threats. It is also the main obstacle of independent living to the frail and elderly people. However, fall management remains a challenge on the improvement of health care quality. A reliable fall-detection system with location-aware functionality provides the user with the reassurance in maintaining an independent lifestyle since the reliable and effective fall detection mechanism and the falling position information will greatly assist urgent medical support and dramatically reduce the cost of medical care.
IEEE 802.15.4 ZigBee is the most popular wireless sensor network (WSN) technology for the benefits of dynamic routing, small size, low-cost, low-power consumption, supporting wireless mesh network standard that make ZigBee suitable in the healthcare environment. In this study, we proposed a location-aware fall detection system that combines fall detection mechanism with ZigBee indoor location engine. A tri-axial accelerometer-based fall detector integrated with wireless ZigBee transmission function is worn onto the waist of the residential elders. Urgent falling alarm and location information will be sent back to the embedded system through WSN while the fall event is detected, and specific care professionals or family members are informed as soon as possible. Adequate care can be delivered to the fallers in the shortest rescuing time. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed scheme with high reliability and sensitivity on fall detection. The system is not only cost effective but also portable that fulfills the requirements of fall detection.
|
|---|
