Assessment test framework for collecting and evaluating fall-related data using mobile devices

Abstract

With an increasing population of older people the number of falls and fall-related injuries is on the rise. This will cause changes for future health care systems, and fall prevention and fall detection will pose a major challenge. Taking the multimodal character of fall-related parameters into account, the development of adequate strategies for fall prevention and detection is very complex. Therefore, it is necessary to collect and analyze fall-related data. This paper describes the development of a test framework to perform a variety of assessment tests to collect fall-related data. The aim of the framework is to easily set up assessment tests and analyze the data regarding fall-related behaviors. It offers an open interface to support a variety of devices. The framework consists of a Web service, a relational database and a Web-based backend. In order to test the framework, a mobile device client recording accelerometer and gyroscope sensor data is implemented on the iOS platform. The evaluation, which includes three mobility assessment tests, demonstrates the sensor accuracy for movement analysis for further feature extraction. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.