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Adapting a medical pendant to sense motion

Former Member

I'm new here so I apologize if I'm posting this in the wrong forum.


Here's the deal: I've got a 97 year old grandmother in an assisted living facility who is prone to falling at night when she gets up to use the bathroom. Although she wears a pendant around her neck, unfortunately at her age she forgets to press it preemptively to have someone assist her. Inevitably she falls in the bathroom while maneuvering herself around and because she forgets she's wearing the pendant she lays there screaming for help in the hopes that someone will hear her or that she'll be rescued during the next regularly scheduled night check.


All of this made me think, there has to be a better solution. What if she had a box with a motion sensor? It's only active during a predetermined period that we can modify. If the motion sensor is triggered it would immediately trigger a built-in pendant which would notify the staff so that by the time she made it over to the restroom, they arrive to help her.


I'm not experienced enough to build this myself. I'd love some recommendations regarding who / where I can find someone to build the unit. Of course I would provide a pendant to be modified and adapted.

 

Best,

Howard

  • 0

    There are several motion sensors that could do something like this, but if they are sensitive enough to be sure to turn on, they may also turn on from other motion that should not cause an alarm.

    You could rig an old "electric eye" (light beam interruption detector) to detect when a person crosses from one space to another and trigger a warning from that.

    You could have a simple switch on a door to detect when it is opened or closed and trigger off that. (like an Enocean solar powered reed switch)

    You could have an RFID system that detects when someone is in a small room and triggers a warning from that.

    You could use a sensitive MEMS pressure sensor that can detect changes in elevation of a few inches - to detect when the sensor is near the floor and trigger off that.

    Probably the simplest is to connect a simple door switch to a separate pendant permanently mounted on the door jamb.

  • 0

    Accelerometers are commonly used to detect activity - this is the same sort of technology used in fitness wristbands or pedometers. Detecting falls (as opposed to general activity) is trickier, but essentially you're looking for a short high impulse, probably followed by slow/no activity.

     

    Fall detection is actually being designed into modern emergency response system, see Philips Lifeline AutoAlert

     

    As Douglas has noted, there are other solutions for this, including a bed occupancy sensor, to detect when your grandmother has been out of bed for a long time, eg. Bed Occupancy Sensor, or a motion detection sensor.