Slashdot Mirror
'Magic Carpet' Could Help Prevent Falls Among the Elderly
Hugh Pickens writes "Falls are a major cause of injury and death among over-70s, and account for more than 50% of hospital admissions for accidental injury. Thus, being able to identify changes in people's walking patterns and gait in the natural environment, such as in a corridor in a nursing home, could help identity mobility problems early on. Now, BBC reports that researchers have shown off a 'magic carpet' that can detect falls and may even predict mobility problems. Beneath the carpet is a mesh of optical fibers that detect and plot movement as pressure bends them, changing the light detected at the carpet's edges. These deflected light patterns help electronics 'learn' walking patterns and detect if they are deteriorating. With over 19,700 deaths in the elderly in the U.S. in 2008 from unintentional fall injuries and 2.2 million nonfatal fall injuries among older adults treated in emergency departments, spotting subtle changes in a person's walking habits may help identify changes that might go unnoticed by family members or care-givers. 'The carpet can gather a wide range of information about a person's condition; from biomechanical to chemical sensing of body fluids, enabling holistic sensing to provide an environment that detects and responds to changes in patient condition,' says Patricia Scully from The University of Manchester's Photon Science Institute."
What if it detected a weight profile that was larger than an average step for a period of time longer than a minute, could it call 911 and request 'Elderly Person Down' assistance? Or at least ask if it should call 911 and if no voice response was given then dial it?
I saw this yesterday. I'm 60, the only time I fall down is when I'm drunk. Sometimes I'm a bit wobbly when I first wake up until I've had coffee, even when I hadn't drank. What would this device "think" about that? My mother had an inner ear problem a few years ago (she's 84), I wonder if this would have kept her from breaking her arm?
Free Martian Whores!
Dogs can't talk so one laying on the carpet may pose problems for that scenario.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Nursing home corridors typically don't have carpets. They are waxed floors that are easy to keep clean with antiseptic because bodily fluids tend to get on them. If you put this "magic carpet" in, how do you ensure it stays as sterile as possible?
What will happen here:
1. Invention will be commercialised;
2. "Assistance device" corporate welfare company will try to sell this to local authorities;
3. Old and disabled people will be offered this as a cheap alternative to the help they actually need;
4. Such people will fall anyway;
5. And then need more NHS and residential care than they would have otherwise.
I'm concerned about the false positives a weight and rhythm sensitive carpet would be subject to.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
So what if two people decide to shag on the floor one day? Or while standing up even? Is that gonna get recorded in the carpet's memory banks and get sent back to home base for further analysis?
In my limited experience watching relatives fall and die soon after (well, not in person, but hearing about it) its not the fall that's the problem, but the heart attack that lead to the pain that led to the fall, or the stroke that led to the fall, or the kidney/liver failure that led to mass confusion that led to the fall... yes these relatives of mine technically did fall and then die, but the "real problem" was what made them fall, not the fall that made them die soon after. So I'm not entirely sure than locking old people in a kids inflatable "bouncy castle" is much help.
Also it seems a stereotype at the hospital/old folks home/hospice that the last thing people do before being permanently bedridden is fall, then they're like chained down or ordered never to stand again, which coincidentally happens pretty late in their decline, so naturally they continue to decline and die like the next week, because apparently standing is not terribly difficult so its one of the last things to go. Come to think of it, it is pretty easy, since its one of the first things kids learn to do...
I'm just saying its not going to make anyone live longer or better, just means they'll get confined to bed rest and die soon after anyway. So its kind of a depressing invention. Kind of the opposite of "let me die with my boots on" type of thing.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I was thinking that too, or (from the poster above) the dog analogy is another good one. But if it's that sensitive it can find the weight of the person based on the pressure profile and it should be able to tell when a specific individual is lying on the carpet, right? I don't have all the answers, I just think it would have practical applications for assisted living communities so that they can tell if a person takes a fall.
'magic carpet'
Beneath the carpet
What ever happened to natural selection???
I think the point is to continue to allow the person to remain ambulatory as long as possible for many different reasons both practical and not. Perhaps also to detect a temporary condition caused by tiredness, TIA or some other event.
Wouldn't a computer vision solution be a lot cheaper to engineer and deploy?
Wouldnt it be better to use kinect-like motion sensors for this sort of thing? Seems pretty random to put hype that kind of tech in the carpet. Prone to drinks spillage, animal piss and wear and tear.
Great!
Now we have a database of thousands of people's daily habits, combined with their addresses and age.
We can query it to find out the best time to air TV shows.
Or use it to find out the best time to break in and steal the TV.
I'm kidding. I'm sure they'll keep the data safe, just like Apple does.
So you're trying to say the magic carpet doesn't fly?
Wheel chairs have their own problems and cause further medical problems. A study done a few years ago showed that 100% of the study's elderly subjects, even in their nineties (the oldest), who could walk 1/4 mile (about 1/2 km, 1 km = .6 mile) all were still alive five years later, and the distance one could walk correlated with how long you had to live.
This is only [damn, what's the word? I'm getting old!], but my cousin broke his neck at age 16 and was in a wheel chair the rest of his life -- he died last week at age 70, his mother is still thriving and in her upper 90s, as are all my mother's siblings.
In short, you stop walking, you die. Unless you're young, of course. Even then you'll die younger than you would have.
Better would be to have some sort of Segway-like tech that would help a walking geezer keep his or her balance. Or even a cane; my late WWII-era drinking buddy Ralph used a cane, and I never saw or heard of him fall.
Free Martian Whores!
Can they make one for my lawn?
"chemical sensing of body fluids"
So... am I going to be the first one to ask.... is this carpet detecting urine, feces, sweat, snot, saliva, semen, vaginal fluid, and other fluids that could drip from the body to floor?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Why not exoskeletons? With that many people needing them, the costs will go waaay down over time.
Where's The Beef!
and the old lady has a cow, slips and falls, and says to the world, I'll souix your motherfucking asses, Wendy's! But she died.
That one?
The 'I've fallen and I can't get up' problem is probably better answered by a bracelet / fob whatever that has an accelerometer, perhaps a pulse meter and a wireless or whatever connection. To use a floor mat to determine whether granny is alive seems complicated.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
A phone with a video camera and link to some analysis software (or, heaven forbid, a real person) would work fine. Do this once a month or so - say when the kids show up. Probably a lot easier than the high tech carpet.
Hell, 30 seconds of walking in front of a physical therapist would get you the same info.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'm glad they clarified that the injuries were from *unintentional* falls.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Why not exoskeletons? With that many people needing them, the costs will go waaay down over time.
Help! My battery's discharged and I can't get up!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'd rather have some false positives than find my Mom has been lying on the floor for a few days.
This could be more useful if combined with some kind of motor system that could move the carpet to prevent the fall, with an algorithm similar to what segways use.
If it detects a big thud, the person has fallen. Also how does this prevent anything? Seriously overengineered.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
a great addition to the White House under Reagan.
The gait analysis of the Great Communicator might have revealed his dementia before his politics or his astrologer did.
That's great if the carpet can tell when grandma is about to fall, it improves the chances of getting help to her on time. The hard part though is getting it to prevent grandma from falling in the first place. If the carpet could convince her to sit down for a while (without making her think she's just lost her mind) that could go a long way on it's own. A lot of falls are preventable by getting the person who is at risk to sit down for a moment.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
No figures for intentional fall injuries ...?
-kgj
It's all very well to identify people at risk of falling but the issue isn't really that. Far more common that older people are in an oversized house that they have lived in for years and they are set in their ways and do not want to move
There is nothing I would like more than a Mario-style moving floor. Incorporate some spike and lava pits and my hallway will be a regular burgular death trap. Can I get that in oak hardwood? Now only if I can find a flying pet turtle.
A walker might be a better compromise. They could cheaply be given to people more likely to fall and they would not remove the ability to walk.
arm bracelets can fall of which should not be too good for false positives. Also a person might fall slowly and still lie there slowly dying of starvation without any alert. A neck bracelet might work, triggering an alert when it is in close proximity to the mat. This should not be a problem as old people who need this stuff generally don't do handstands or cartwheels.
Have a physical or occupational therapist do an eval on patients with a fall risk and those scoring above some point on the criteria get put in wheelchairs.
Good luck with that.
I suspect that an elderly person with mobility issues might not want to look after a dog that's roughly the same size and weight as them.
Most people think the fall is the cause of broken bones, etc... when in fact it's usually the other way around.
I expect that this carpet could in fact help, in some cases, which makes it work doing. I think that there are many other ways to approach this which might be fruitful as well.
Once you've reached breeding age and chosen to exercise your haploid cells, or not, you've achieved your Darwinian potential.
Natural selection is just the combination of genetic expression (you) and your opportunity to pass the genes you possess on for further testing against the environment in which your offspring exist. In terms of natural selection, old geezers become more of an environmental factor. They may act as assistance or drag on successive generations by facilitating survival or competing for sustenance.
I.e., at some point or another, unless you are a biblical character, your potential to breed viable offspring diminishes to zero, and your Darwinian days are over.
Although walkers do help, I have seen some folks fall even with their walker.
It's just more than telling if granny is on the floor, TFA I read yesterday said it can fortell falls by a person's gait, preventing the fall in the first place.
Free Martian Whores!
Also, exoskeletons may have the same problems as wheelchairs, as far as making you die early is concerned.
Free Martian Whores!
It's time to die.
HAL: Dave, are you stumbling drunk again?
Dave: No HAL, I am having a stroke and falling down. Can you get medical assistance?
HAL: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave.
Silence is a state of mime.
The carpet can gather a wide range of information about a person's condition; from biomechanical to chemical sensing of body fluids,
Cleanup on aisle 5 .....
Have gnu, will travel.
Help! I've fallen and ...
Hey...
NICE CARPET!!
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Anecdote is not data, etc. etc.
In reality many people are at the margins of stable standing and walking for years (to counter your anecdotes I personally know of several dozen cases of people who lived many years with stand/walk problems and restrictions.)
My relatives in the healthcare field know and have told me of many, many, many more cases.
Not sure why you are modded "funny". Old age is better than the alternative, but it's not very amusing much of the time.
I don't see anywhere that describes how it prevents people from falling.
How? Does it jump up and catch them?
Identifies a drunken gait and tells you to go sleep in the garage tonight.
Thus, your wife doesn't have to stay up waiting for you.
Dogs tend to make a different impact when casually lying down than the elderly falling down, I think.
testing out my trending skills
Not a Weimaraner, sure, but a properly professionally trained Labrador retriever from a good bloodline would be incredibly valuable. A German Shepherd would be a good choice, too, but I think the generally-underrated Doberman (a brave, loyal, and extremely smart dog), while a good choice for most situations, is probably too excitable for the elderly.
Probably because he was male. Many female falls/hip fractures are not fall -> fracture but actually the other way around - falls that occur when the hip (weakened due to osteoporosis) fractures. No balancing device can help someone stay up in that situation.
1980's
Old Woman (pushes button on medic alert device): Help! I've Fallen and I can't get up!
2010's
Magic Carpet (opens internet connection to medical alert center): Help! Someone's fallen on me and she can't get up!
Wow!
A carpet that can detect a fall. Technology so advanced it clearly deserves the term "magic".
It changes colour to warn others in the vicinity that the person requires *immediate* assistance. I'm assuming they could also add an audible alarm.
I've seen folks with walkers fall too, but they were at the bar at the time. Hell, I saw one guy fall out of his motorized wheelchair!
Free Martian Whores!
What are we going to do when the elderly don't die any more? Death is unfortunate, but not as unfortunate as worldwide resource exaustion.
Otoh, They might not. There's a big difference between having all your limbs moved by an exoskeleton and being confined to a chair.