6 ms·

When my late father moved into the nursing home they stuck him in the basement which had long hallways and at the time was mostly vacant. He had a walker and i

by rmason 5y ago

When my late father moved into the nursing home they stuck him in the basement which had long hallways and at the time was mostly vacant. He had a walker and it didn't dawn on us it would ever be a problem. But then he had a fall and couldn't get up. Anywhere else in the facility a staff member would have found him within five minutes. After a half hour and multiple failed attempts to stand he remembered his cell phone and called a Lodge member who took another twenty minutes to get there and help him up. He didn't call me because he didn't want me to know he fell. But his Lodge buddy ratted him out to me and I was able to get him on a list for the first available room upstairs. A device like this could have alerted someone at the facility that he had fallen, this is a very big deal and it's going to save lives.

bsder 5y ago
> A device like this could have alerted someone at the facility that he had fallen, this is a very big deal and it's going to save lives. Nope. It will never get deployed. The problem is that when it fails, who is liable? I've said it over and over, but the revolution in biomedical will happen when someone solves the problem of indemnity and not before.
- aaron695 5y ago
- gizmo686 5y ago
  You mean devices like https://www.medicalalert.com/fall-detection/ https://www.medicalalert.com/fall-detection/ Or these https://www.consumeraffairs.com/medical-alert-systems/fall-detection.html https://www.consumeraffairs.com/medical-alert-systems/fall-d... Wearable fall detection devices are already a relativly crowded field. The liability doesn't seem to have been a show stopper yet. I don't see why the non-wearable variety should face a substantially higher legal standard (although they do seem more technically challanging).
throwawayboise 5y ago
It's sad but most facilities are like this. If you want your elderly parents to have assistance, either move them in with you or hire private help and verify that they are doing what you want. Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die In some countries, elderly care facilities are being run by mob like organizations, as they are insanely profitable, draining the elders, their children and the government of funds simultaneously, while throwing PR to look like saints. Insane. It's crazy, and I assume this business will boom further in the west with our ever increasing aging population. It'll be the new gold rush if it isn't there already.
  - krageon 5y ago
    It runs so well because in the west folks more or less hate their parents: When they become inconvenient (read: need care), they are put away and politely ignored until they die. That's why those places are so hostile to their inhabitants: They know nobody cares about them enough to really do anything about it.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      I doubt most westerners hate their parents. I think the western grind removes any free time for people to look after their aging parents, hell, most barely have time for their kids, let alone their parents as well.
boffinAudio 5y ago
You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone - I wrote such an app in 2009, it presented a 3D interface to the user to show them it was working, you could attach it to your belt and safely walk around anywhere, and if it detected a fall it would send SMS alerts, make a sound, etc. I had users that swore by this app, it actually protected mutliple end-users (elderly, sufferers of MS, etc.) and was very well received by the users who trusted it. The 6dof Gyroscope/Accelerometer sensors in most phones are perfectly adequate for the task. It worked very well until it was removed from the Play Store a few years ago, but you can still find the APK floating around (https://apkfun.com/down_Fall-Detector.html https://apkfun.com/down_Fall-Detector.html) - although there are a lot more competing apps like this, it was actually one of the first to do reliable fall detection and reporting on Android ... Main thing about Fall Detectors: TEST them. Really, really test them. You'd be surprised how well some algorithms work and how poorly they can perform if you do a 'slow fall', etc.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone Obviously we could do this since phones had accelerometers, so I'm not sure if you read the the product description, but these radar sensors allow you to do fall detection WITHOUT having to clip a phone or any other sensor onto people. Way, way more convenient and better for privacy. I can't imagine grandma will take her phone with her in her pijamas when she goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, just to have her fall status sensed. These sensors are a real game changer.
  - boffinAudio 5y ago
    I disagree that this is more convenient/better for privacy. With the app: the user already has a cell phone, and doesn't need to buy anything else to get protected from falls. No proprietary hardware, just an app to install and he's safe. Plus, he'll always have his phone on him and can call/be called whenever deemed necessary by his caregivers. There are no privacy implications whatsoever, because the app only reports to the people it is configured to report to - by SMS and Twitter, as well as local audio alerts. BTW, I built this app for a company that had already developed hardware-based fall detectors, over ten years ago - this is not by any means a new market - which functioned perfectly every time (not needing mmWave) .. and which they determined were not popular because it required extra proprietary/special hardware, which most elderly in this market are suspicious of .. but given the choice to install a Fall Detector on their existing cell phone, which they carry around anyway as a safety net, was a no brainer ..

by rmason 5y ago

bsder 5y ago

> A device like this could have alerted someone at the facility that he had fallen, this is a very big deal and it's going to save lives. Nope. It will never get deployed. The problem is that when it fails, who is liable? I've said it over and over, but the revolution in biomedical will happen when someone solves the problem of indemnity and not before.

aaron695 5y ago
gizmo686 5y ago
You mean devices like https://www.medicalalert.com/fall-detection/ https://www.medicalalert.com/fall-detection/ Or these https://www.consumeraffairs.com/medical-alert-systems/fall-detection.html https://www.consumeraffairs.com/medical-alert-systems/fall-d... Wearable fall detection devices are already a relativly crowded field. The liability doesn't seem to have been a show stopper yet. I don't see why the non-wearable variety should face a substantially higher legal standard (although they do seem more technically challanging).

throwawayboise 5y ago

It's sad but most facilities are like this. If you want your elderly parents to have assistance, either move them in with you or hire private help and verify that they are doing what you want. Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>Nursing homes and care facilities mainly exist to drain the assets of the elderly and then get them on medicaid until they die In some countries, elderly care facilities are being run by mob like organizations, as they are insanely profitable, draining the elders, their children and the government of funds simultaneously, while throwing PR to look like saints. Insane. It's crazy, and I assume this business will boom further in the west with our ever increasing aging population. It'll be the new gold rush if it isn't there already.
- krageon 5y ago
  It runs so well because in the west folks more or less hate their parents: When they become inconvenient (read: need care), they are put away and politely ignored until they die. That's why those places are so hostile to their inhabitants: They know nobody cares about them enough to really do anything about it.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    I doubt most westerners hate their parents. I think the western grind removes any free time for people to look after their aging parents, hell, most barely have time for their kids, let alone their parents as well.

boffinAudio 5y ago

You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone - I wrote such an app in 2009, it presented a 3D interface to the user to show them it was working, you could attach it to your belt and safely walk around anywhere, and if it detected a fall it would send SMS alerts, make a sound, etc. I had users that swore by this app, it actually protected mutliple end-users (elderly, sufferers of MS, etc.) and was very well received by the users who trusted it. The 6dof Gyroscope/Accelerometer sensors in most phones are perfectly adequate for the task. It worked very well until it was removed from the Play Store a few years ago, but you can still find the APK floating around (https://apkfun.com/down_Fall-Detector.html https://apkfun.com/down_Fall-Detector.html) - although there are a lot more competing apps like this, it was actually one of the first to do reliable fall detection and reporting on Android ... Main thing about Fall Detectors: TEST them. Really, really test them. You'd be surprised how well some algorithms work and how poorly they can perform if you do a 'slow fall', etc.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>You can easily do Fall Detection with a modern cell phone Obviously we could do this since phones had accelerometers, so I'm not sure if you read the the product description, but these radar sensors allow you to do fall detection WITHOUT having to clip a phone or any other sensor onto people. Way, way more convenient and better for privacy. I can't imagine grandma will take her phone with her in her pijamas when she goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night, just to have her fall status sensed. These sensors are a real game changer.
- boffinAudio 5y ago
  I disagree that this is more convenient/better for privacy. With the app: the user already has a cell phone, and doesn't need to buy anything else to get protected from falls. No proprietary hardware, just an app to install and he's safe. Plus, he'll always have his phone on him and can call/be called whenever deemed necessary by his caregivers. There are no privacy implications whatsoever, because the app only reports to the people it is configured to report to - by SMS and Twitter, as well as local audio alerts. BTW, I built this app for a company that had already developed hardware-based fall detectors, over ten years ago - this is not by any means a new market - which functioned perfectly every time (not needing mmWave) .. and which they determined were not popular because it required extra proprietary/special hardware, which most elderly in this market are suspicious of .. but given the choice to install a Fall Detector on their existing cell phone, which they carry around anyway as a safety net, was a no brainer ..