Development of an Intelligent Walking Aid for Fall Detection

Abstract

The medical field has made significant improvements over the past decades, leading to an older and healthier population. One of the main core problems being tackled is the detection of falling events. The quick detection of a fall contributes greatly to the fast arrival of help and prevents further damages. Therefore an intelligent crutch was developed with the purpose of detecting a fall and the following call for help if needed, as well as conveying the location of the user to relatives and care givers. The crutch was evaluated in a series of experiments during which all falls were identified correctly and alerting was initiated.

Keywords

• fall detection
• walking aid
• crutch