title: Towards a social and context-aware multi-sensor fall detection and risk assessment platform.
abstract: For elderly people fall incidents are life-changing events that lead to degradation or even loss of autonomy. Current fall detection systems are not integrated and often associated with undetected falls and/or false alarms. In this paper, a social- and context-aware multi-sensor platform is presented, which integrates information gathered by a plethora of fall detection systems and sensors at the home of the elderly, by using a cloud-based solution, making use of an ontology. Within the ontology, both static and dynamic information is captured to model the situation of a specific patient and his/her (in)formal caregivers. This integrated contextual information allows to automatically and continuously assess the fall risk of the elderly, to more accurately detect falls and identify false alarms and to automatically notify the appropriate caregiver, e.g., based on location or their current task. The main advantage of the proposed platform is that multiple fall detection systems and sensors can be integrated, as they can be easily plugged in, this can be done based on the specific needs of the patient. The combination of several systems and sensors leads to a more reliable system, with better accuracy. The proof of concept was tested with the use of the visualizer, which enables a better way to analyze the data flow within the back-end and with the use of the portable testbed, which is equipped with several different sensors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: femke.debackere@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: De Backere
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: femke.ongenae@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ongenae
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: floris.vandenabeele@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Van den Abeele
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: jelle.nelis@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nelis
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: pieter.bonte@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bonte
authors.affiliation: Verhaert - Masters in Innovation Headquarters Hogenakkerhoekstraat 21, B-9150 Kruibeke, Belgium. Electronic address: eli.clement@verhaert.com.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Clement
authors.affiliation: Verhaert - Masters in Innovation Headquarters Hogenakkerhoekstraat 21, B-9150 Kruibeke, Belgium. Electronic address: matthew.philpott@verhaert.com.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Philpott
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: jeroen.hoebeke@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hoebeke
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: stijn.verstichel@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Verstichel
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: ann.ackaert@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ackaert
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Ghent University - iMinds, Gaston Crommenlaan 8, bus 201, B-9050 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: filip.deturck@intec.ugent.be.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: De Turck
mesh_terms: D061725:Accelerometry; D000058:Accidental Falls; D000465:Algorithms; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D006801:Humans; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000379:methods*; D018570:Risk Assessment
keywords: Context-aware; Fall detection; Fall risk assessment; Ontology; Semantic