FALL DETECTION AND/OR PREVENTION SYSTEMS

• US 20110230791A1
• Filed: 08/20/2009
• Published: 09/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Ten Kate, Warner Rudolph Theophile, Peng, Yang, Baldus, Heribert, Jin, Sheng
• Granted Patent: US 9,011,352 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/595
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1117 Fall detection
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/043 detecting an emergency event, e.g. a fall
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0446 worn on the body to detect changes of posture, e.g. a fall, inclination, acceleration, gait
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/22 Provisions facilitating manual calibration, e.g. input or output provisions for testing; Holding of intermittent values to permit measurement

Abstract

There is provided a fall detection and/or prevention system, comprising one or more sensors for detecting characteristics of movement of a user of the fall detection and/or prevention system and for generating corresponding signals; processing means for analyzing the signals from the one or more sensors using a fall detection algorithm to determine if a fall has taken place or is likely to take place; wherein the processing means is further adapted to update said fall detection algorithm based on the result of the analysis of the signals and an indication whether a fall has actually taken place from the user or a third party.

Claims

1. A fall detection and/or prevention system, comprising:

one or more sensors for detecting characteristics of movement of a user of the fall detection and/or prevention system and for generating corresponding signals;

processing means for analyzing the signals from the one or more sensors using a fall detection algorithm to determine if a fall has taken place or is likely to take place;

wherein the processing means is further adapted to update said fall detection algorithm based on the result of the analysis of the signals and an indication whether a fall has actually taken place from the user or a third party.

2. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing means is adapted to generate an alarm signal in the event that a fall has taken place or is likely to take place.

3. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a memory for storing the signals, an indication from the fall detection algorithm of whether the fall detection algorithm has determined that a fall has taken place or is likely to take place, and the indication whether a fall has actually taken place.

4. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 3, further comprising means for generating a trace for a plurality of signals from the one or more sensors, and the memory is adapted to store the trace of the signals.

5. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the indication whether a fall has actually taken place comprises a reset signal.

6. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the processing means determines that the fall detection algorithm has provided a false positive in the event that the fall detection algorithm detects that a fall has taken place and the reset signal is present, and the processing means is adapted to update the fall detection algorithm accordingly.

7. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 5, wherein the processing means determines that the fall detection algorithm has provided a true positive in the event that the fall detection algorithm detects that a fall has taken place and the reset signal is not present, and the processing means is adapted to update the fall detection algorithm accordingly.

8. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 5, further comprising means for receiving the reset signal from a third party.

9. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 5, further comprising a first user operable component for allowing a user to selectively generate the reset signal.

10. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 9, further comprising a second user-operable component for generating an alarm signal.

11. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the processing means determines that the fall detection algorithm has provided a false negative in the event that the fall detection algorithm does not detect that a fall has taken place and the alarm signal is present, and the processing means is adapted to update the fall detection algorithm accordingly.

12. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the processing means determines that the fall detection algorithm has provided a true positive in the event that the fall detection algorithm detects that a fall has taken place and the alarm signal is present, and the processing means is adapted to update the fall detection algorithm accordingly.

13. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the fall detection algorithm comprises one or more feature sets representing signals from the one or more sensors.

14. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the processing means is adapted to monitor the frequency with which the fall detection algorithm is updated, and if the frequency exceeds a threshold, the processing means is adapted to remove one or more feature sets from the fall detection algorithm.

15. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the processing means determines if a fall has taken place or is likely to take place by comparing the one or more feature sets with the corresponding signals generated by the one or more sensors.

16. A fall detection and/or prevention system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing means is adapted to update the fall detection algorithm in order to selectively optimize false positives, where the algorithm incorrectly detects a fall, false negatives, where the algorithm incorrectly detects that no fall has taken place, or to obtain a stable ratio between false positives and false negatives.

17. A method of training a fall detection and/or prevention algorithm for use in a fall detection and/or prevention system, the method comprising:

obtaining measurements of characteristics of movement of a user of the fall detection and/or prevention system;

analyzing the measurements using a fall detection algorithm to determine if a fall has taken place or is likely to take place; and

updating said fall detection algorithm based on the result of the step of analyzing and an indication whether a fall has actually taken place from the user or a third party.

18. A computer program product comprising executable code that, when executed on a suitable computer or processor, performs the steps of:

receiving signals indicating characteristics of movement of a user of a fall detection and/or prevention system;

analyzing the signals using a fall detection algorithm to determine if a fall has taken place or is likely to take place; and

updating said fall detection algorithm based on the result of the analysis of the signals and an indication whether a fall has actually taken place received from the user or a third party.