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Apparatus for identifying falls and activities of daily living

a technology for falling and activities, applied in the field of recognition devices, can solve the problems of elderly fallers incapable of freely acting, serious physical trauma and sequelae, and degradation of mobility, and achieve the effect of improving the recognition rate and protecting the user from injury

Inactive Publication Date: 2011-10-27
NAT CHIAO TUNG UNIV
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]To solve the above drawbacks, the present invention provides a portable fall recognition device for increasing the recognition rate and providing an immediate protection for the fallers so the device is utilized to measure the physiological signals to distinguish the falls from ADLs quickly and to be triggered to achieve a protecting effect when the fall happens.

Problems solved by technology

However, the falls for the elderly population will cause serious physical trauma and sequelae, such as degradation of mobility, the demand for a moving auxiliary equipment, etc.
A further serious condition the elderly fallers might probably encounter is the paralysis which would cause the elderly fallers incapable to freely act.
Thus, the elderly fallers need a caretaker to help their ADLs, which would consume the social costs.
In general, elderly fallers tend to reduce activities and prevent going outside so that they could reduce the risk of the falls, which would result in a vicious circle for the elder fallers.
Falls are the leading cause of unintentional deaths of the population over the age of 65 in the United States and many industrial countries Because of the population growth and the population aging, the resource of the medical care can not support the increasing demands.
The recognition technology can not provide an immediate protection.
However, this technology can not distinguish the passive actions from the active actions and can not accurately recognize the fall state, such as the stumble or the slip.
However, the greatest disadvantage of such technology is the feasibility depends on the position where the image capture devices are installed.
In fact, each of the image capture devices can only capture the image within a specific domain.
However, there is still a problem which is difficult to be overcome for using such devices in the outdoor space.

Method used

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  • Apparatus for identifying falls and activities of daily living
  • Apparatus for identifying falls and activities of daily living
  • Apparatus for identifying falls and activities of daily living

Examples

Experimental program
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first embodiment

[0038]FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the recognition device 1 in the present invention. The recognition device 1 includes an inertia sensor unit 111, a physiological sensor unit 112, a computing unit 121, a recognition unit 122, an output unit 13, a memory unit 14 and a protecting unit 15.

[0039]Preferably, the physiological sensor unit 112 can be an electromyography sensor unit, which can measure the physiological reactions of the muscle groups, such as myoelectric signals, to obtain the physiological signal for determining whether the fall is going to happen. In addition, since the physiological sensor unit 12 should keep sensing for distinguishing the falls from the ADLs when the fall happens, the physiological sensor unit 12 would measure continuously the signal of the ADLs to obtain the information of the ADLs, which can record the health state and the amount of exercise. Moreover, the recognition device 1 can generate a signal threshold based on the information of the A...

second embodiment

[0049]FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the fall recognition device 2 in the present invention. The fall recognition device 2 includes a sensor unit 21, a computing unit 221, a recognition unit 222 and a setting unit 223.

[0050]In the aforementioned embodiment, the sensor unit 21 is configured to measure a sensor signal and the computing unit 221 is configured to compute the sensor signal. The computed result can be stored in the computing unit 221 or a memory unit. In addition, a signal threshold, which is a fall reference to determine whether the fall is going to happen, can be generated from the computed result computed based on the sensor signals measured continuously through the ADLs. Generally, the recognition unit 222 would determine the fall is going to happen if the sensor signal is higher than the signal threshold, and the recognition unit 222 would determine the fall does not happen if the sensor signal is lower than the signal threshold.

[0051]In fact, every user has ...

third embodiment

[0054]FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating the fall positioning device 3 in the present invention. The fall positioning device 3 includes a sensor unit 31, a computing unit 321, a recognition unit 322, an output unit 33, a positioning unit 36 and a warning unit 37.

[0055]In the aforementioned embodiment, the sensor unit 31 can be a physiological sensor unit and / or the inertia sensor unit, wherein the physiological sensor unit can be an electromyography sensor unit and the inertia sensor unit can be an accelerometer and / or a gyroscope. The physiological signal measured by the physiological sensor unit can be computed by the computing unit 321 to estimate a distance having been moved and the moving direction of the user and the moving direction, such as going forwards, backwards, upwards or downwards or turning right or left.

[0056]In the aforementioned embodiment, the sensor signal measure by the sensor unit 31 can be computed by the computing unit 321 to obtain a computed result, wh...

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PUM

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Abstract

The present invention provides and apparatus for distinguishing falls from activities of daily living (ADLs). First, the human movements and muscle activities would be obtained by an electromyography measuring unit and / or an inertia measuring unit to record ADLs, and falls would be distinguished from ADLs to trigger the protecting devices in time to prevent or decrease injury. In addition, the apparatus would be preset for different operational conditions to adapt different users by a setting unit to increase accuracy. Finally, the moving distance and the direction of the user would be obtained by the electromyography measuring unit and / or the inertia measuring unit to obtain the location thereof in an interior space.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention is related to a recognition device to distinguish the falls from activities of daily living (ADLs), more particularly to a recognition device measuring the physiological signals to distinguish the falls from ADLs.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The falls are not a serious problem for a group of the adolescents and the adults. However, the falls for the elderly population will cause serious physical trauma and sequelae, such as degradation of mobility, the demand for a moving auxiliary equipment, etc. A further serious condition the elderly fallers might probably encounter is the paralysis which would cause the elderly fallers incapable to freely act. Thus, the elderly fallers need a caretaker to help their ADLs, which would consume the social costs. In addition to the physical trauma, the psychological sequelae would impact on the psychology for the elderly fallers. In general, elderly fallers tend to reduce activities and prevent going out...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): A61B5/11
CPCA61B5/0488A61B5/1117A61B5/746A61B5/1113A61B5/7275A61B5/0002A61B5/389
Inventor YANG, BING-SHIANGWANG, CHIH-CHUNGLIAO, SAIN-TING
Owner NAT CHIAO TUNG UNIV
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