3rd International ICST Conference on Body Area Networks

Research Article

A wireless platform for fall and mobility monitoring in health care

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.BODYNETS2008.2953,
        author={Pepijn van de Ven and Alan Bourke and John Nelson and Gear\^{o}id \^{O} Laighin},
        title={A wireless platform for fall and mobility monitoring in health care},
        proceedings={3rd International ICST Conference on Body Area Networks},
        publisher={ICST},
        proceedings_a={BODYNETS},
        year={2010},
        month={5},
        keywords={Mobility monitoring fall sensing wireless com- munications},
        doi={10.4108/ICST.BODYNETS2008.2953}
    }
    
  • Pepijn van de Ven
    Alan Bourke
    John Nelson
    Gearóid Ó Laighin
    Year: 2010
    A wireless platform for fall and mobility monitoring in health care
    BODYNETS
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/ICST.BODYNETS2008.2953
Pepijn van de Ven1,*, Alan Bourke1,*, John Nelson1,*, Gearóid Ó Laighin2,*
  • 1: Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering, University of Limerick, Ireland
  • 2: Department of Electronic Engineering, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
*Contact email: pepijn.vandeven@ul.ie, alan.bourke@ul.ie, john.nelson@ul.ie, gearoid.olaighin@nuigalway.ie

Abstract

In this paper a new platform for monitoring of mobility in health care is presented. The platform was designed with a primary aim at monitoring of mobility and fall incidents in elderly people and is part of a wider system that uses web interfaces to gather data on several vital signs, mobility and fall events, and to communicate with the elderly people and warn family, health carers or emergency services if nec- essary. The fall and mobility sensing platform is based on measurements of the subject’s accelerations in three degrees of freedom. Gathered data can be relayed to a mobile phone using a Bluetooth radio after which the information can be relayed to a web server. In this paper the design of the platform and tests with healthy subjects and with elderly subjects are discussed.