![]() ![]() A growing number of older adults fear to fall and, as a result, limit their activities and social engagements. Falls, with or without injury, also carry a heavy quality of life impact. The financial toll for older adult falls is expected to increase as the population ages and may reach 67.7 billion dollars by 2020. ![]() ![]() In 2015, the total cost of fall injuries was 50 billion dollars. Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults. That means every 11 seconds, an older adult is treated in the emergency room for a fall, every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that one in four Americans aged 65+ falls each year. ![]() This, in turn, leads to hospitalization and risk for complications such as pneumonia, pulmonary embolus, permanent disability, and death. Many elderly (both in the community and institutions) express a fear of falling this fear is well-founded since many falls, especially in thin white females with a high risk of osteoporosis, resulting in fractured hips. Age-related changes in the central nervous system and peripheral nerves that control balance may play a role in predisposing the elderly to falls. In the case of almost 40 % of deaths caused by heart problems among the age group 65+, it is increasingly important to monitor the heart rate, save the data and analyze it by professionals.įalls, due to several causes, such as locomotor disturbances, arthritis, and related orthopedic conditions, environmental barriers, and drug side effects, are exceedingly common. According to the study from The Eurostat 38.7 % of all deaths among the elderly population in the EU were from circulatory diseases, compared with almost one quarter (23.8 %) from cancer and less than one-tenth (8.9 %) from respiratory diseases. It is increasingly clear that there are at least two major subgroups of the elderly: those aged 65-74 (the “young- old”), who are generally very fit and active, and those 75 and older (the “old-old”), who have a much higher prevalence of illness and disability. For this reason, it is essential to research and create an overview of the main causes of elderly persons losing autonomy in the form of a State of the Art analysis. This means families and the government need to invest a lot more into elderly care and make innovations in monitoring one of the weakest social groups. With the growth of life expectancy, there are going to be more and more elderly persons to take care of. Researches show that in the next 10 years the average life expectancy at the age of 10 in developed countries rises from 74.5 to 76.5. The wearable elderly monitoring device provides autonomous elderly persons, the family of a semi-autonomous elderly person, or a full-time caretaker of an elderly person with information to avoid or detect as soon as possible a potentially fatal situation. Our solution targets elders who still have a degree of mobility (albeit reduced) and spend most of their time inside their own house. Thankfully, due to perpetual technological advancements and constant cost reduction of electronic components, every day we are one step closer to a human-less monitoring system capable of measuring all vitals and recognize unusual behavior of patients. Ideally, no supervisors would be required at all. One of the biggest challenges that arise from caregiving is being able to monitor a large number of patients without requiring a large number of supervisors as well. This made us think about ways in which we could design an IoT system that would improve a senior citizen's life, without invading the privacy, while helping their loved ones know about his/her current state. Through non-stop monitoring, problems and accidents can be detected in time and the negative effects will be diminished substantially. Many accidents are not reported on time because the elderly cannot ask for help and they are taken and treated in the hospital after a longer period of time. Most of them have health problems and need frequent assistance. At this moment, there is a large number of old people living alone. Therefore, we will be reaching a point in the future in which the elderly population will vastly outnumber the workforce available to look after them. Although still growing, the global population is predicted to be level out at the end of the 21st century. We are undoubtedly facing a global phenomenon, named population aging. Customer Value, Cost, Convenience, Communication ![]()
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