Fall incidents unraveled: a series of 26 video-based real-life fall events in three frail older persons

BMC Geriatrics

Research Article

Toon Goedemé¹  Eddy Dejaeger²  Steven Boonen³  Ellen Vlaeyen⁴  Mieke Deschodt⁵  Koen Milisen⁵  Glen Debard⁶  Bart Vanrumste⁷ 

[1] Campus De Nayer, Lessius Hogeschool, Jan De Nayerlaan 5, 2860, Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium;iMinds Future Health Department/SISTA/SCD/ESAT, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, postbus 2440, 3001, KU LeuvenHeverlee, Belgium;Division of Geriatric Medicine, Leuven University Hospital, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium;Division of Geriatric Medicine, Leuven University Hospital, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium;Center for Metabolic Bone Diseases, box 701, Herestraat 49, 3000, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium;Faculty of Medicine, Center for Health Services and Nursing Research, Kapucijnenvoer 35/4, 3000, Leuven, Leuven, KU, Belgium;Faculty of Medicine, Center for Health Services and Nursing Research, Kapucijnenvoer 35/4, 3000, Leuven, Leuven, KU, Belgium;Division of Geriatric Medicine, Leuven University Hospital, Herestraat 49, 3000, Leuven, Belgium;MOBILAB, Biosciences and Technology Department, Thomas More Kempen, Kleinhoefstraat 4, 2440, Geel, Belgium;Department of Electrical Engineering, Center for Processing Speech and Images, box 2440, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001, KU Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium;MOBILAB, Biosciences and Technology Department, Thomas More Kempen, Kleinhoefstraat 4, 2440, Geel, Belgium;iMinds Future Health Department/SISTA/SCD/ESAT, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, postbus 2440, 3001, KU LeuvenHeverlee, Belgium;

关键词: Accidental falls;    Detection;    Fall characteristics;    Older persons;    Video-based;    Classification system;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2318-13-103

 received in 2013-01-22, accepted in 2013-09-26,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFor prevention and detection of falls, it is essential to unravel the way in which older people fall. This study aims to provide a description of video-based real-life fall events and to examine real-life falls using the classification system by Noury and colleagues, which divides a fall into four phases (the prefall, critical, postfall and recovery phase).MethodsObservational study of three older persons at high risk for falls, residing in assisted living or residential care facilities: a camera system was installed in each participant’s room covering all areas, using a centralized PC platform in combination with standard Internet Protocol (IP) cameras. After a fall, two independent researchers analyzed recorded images using the camera position with the clearest viewpoint.ResultsA total of 30 falls occurred of which 26 were recorded on camera over 17 months. Most falls happened in the morning or evening (62%), when no other persons were present (88%). Participants mainly fell backward (initial fall direction and landing configuration) on the pelvis or torso and none could get up unaided. In cases where a call alarm was used (54%), an average of 70 seconds (SD=64; range 15–224) was needed to call for help. Staff responded to the call after an average of eight minutes (SD=8.4; range 2–33). Mean time on the ground was 28 minutes (SD=25.4; range 2–59) without using a call alarm compared to 11 minutes (SD=9.2; range 3–38) when using a call alarm (p=0.445).The real life falls were comparable with the prefall and recovery phase of Noury’s classification system. The critical phase, however, showed a prolonged duration in all falls. We suggest distinguishing two separate phases: a prolonged loss of balance phase and the actual descending phase after failure to recover balance, resulting in the impact of the body on the ground. In contrast to the theoretical description, the postfall phase was not typically characterized by inactivity; this depended on the individual.ConclusionsThis study contributes to a better understanding of the fall process in private areas of assisted living and residential care settings in older persons at high risk for falls.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Vlaeyen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.