August 5, 2024
A newly funded project is claiming that new technology can detect signs of falls by older people up to 32 days before they occur.
Falling is one of the most significant issues affecting the health and wellbeing of the older population.
The project, Move More Live More, involves Age NI, the Public Health Agency (PHA), the Southern Health and Social Care Trust and Ulster University.
Vicki Caddy from Age NI said: “The programme involves wearing a smart watch which monitors activity levels, sleep, heart rate and Sp02 (oxygen saturation).”
“In the background there is a software programme which benchmarks someone’s normal patterns of activity, their normal amount of movement or heart rate or sleep in a day. If there are any changes in that, the software will pick that up, even before the individual wearer would be aware that there was anything different.
If those alerts are at a level that gives cause for concern, that data is passed through to a call centre.”
“An individual will phone the person who is wearing the device, check everything is OK, see whether they need any assistance, whether they need any health advice and also see whether they are moving as much as they were and why not.”
Ms Caddy said if additional help is needed at this stage, then there is a mechanism to get the person back into health care.
The programme is open to people aged over 65 who are interested in trying the technology.
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