A dynamic spatiotemporal model for fall warning and protection

This study proposed the concept of identifying “Imbalance Point” to warn the body imbalance, allowing sufficient time to recover balance. And if falling cannot be avoided, an impact sign is released by detecting the “Fall Point” prior to the impact. To achieve this goal, motion prediction model and balance recovery model are integrated i nto a spatiotemporal framework to analyze dynamic and kinematic features of body motion. Eight healthy young volunteers participated in three sets of experiment: Normal trial, Recovery trial and Fall trial. The body motion in the trials was recorded using Microsoft Azure Kinect. The results show tha t the developed algorithm for Fall Point detection achieved 100% sensitivity and 98.6% specificity, along with an average lead time of 297 ms. Moreover, Imbalance Point was successfully detected in all Fall trials, and the average time interval between Imbalance Point and Fall Point was 315 ms, lo nger than reported step reaction time for elderly (approximately 270 ms). The experiment results demonstrate that the developed algorithm have great potential for fall warning and protection in the elderly.Graphical Abstract
Source: Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing - Category: Biomedical Engineering Source Type: research