Falls and the Elderly

About 20 years ago, BT were probably the first large organisation anywhere in the world to consider the role of telecoms in the care of older people. Their plans for intelligent systems making use of their telephone network stalled for many reasons, but the main one was that they didn't have a route to market. It was research at the University of Wales in Bangor that recognised the role of the community alarm infrastructure as a vehicle for taking forward telecare, and this was published in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare back in 1996.

There followed a plethora of new devices and monitoring suggestions to detect falls and to identify the behaviour that might lead to an identification of pre-fall patterns so that timely interventions could be made. All this was published before the turn of the century when it was also recognised that real people behave in very different ways and that falls are such a complex combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that good predictions are almost impossible unless the home is literally filled with sensors. The answer is therefore good assessment and the prescription of either fall detectors or bed occupancy monitors, virtual sensor combination or lack of movement detection to give everyone who is at risk of a fall the confidence to live life to the full in the knowledge that they would not have to endure a long lie before someone comes riding to their rescue.

Dare I suggest that the USA (and its telecoms companies) are therefore still more than a decade behind the UK in telecare? If anyone would like a copy of a 1998 paper on the subject of fall prediction, please e-mail me: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it