The growth in the senior population is increasing the need for affordable technology to monitor for emergencies such as falls, which are the most common injury-related cause of hospital admissions for the elderly. As reported in The Atlantic, a researcher from Villanova University is looking at the use of radar technology to identify when people fall in their homes. The device, which is intended to work through walls, emits and receives frequencies depending on the motion of a person’s body.
According to the researcher, Dr. Moeness Amin, radar monitoring is an appealing alternative to cameras, which can be seen as invasive, and wearable devices, such as alert bracelets, which some people may forget and others find uncomfortable.
According to the article, “at the most basic level, the radar will detect movement and classify the frequencies it receives in one of two ways: fall or no fall.” The system “will also localize the fall. It will say that the person fell in the living room.” It can send an alert to a “family member’s cell phone or LED display in someone else’s home.”
