Smart Residential Carpet for Promoting Aging in Place

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Aging in place or the ability of older adults to continue to live safely and economically in their own residences for as long as possible is one of the key issues of modern societies Continued population growth of older adults age will lead to significant financial and logistical burdens on the nationandapos s healthcare system As the population ages there will be a greater need for preventive acute rehabilitative and long term health care services for older adults as well as a need for tools to enable them to function independently during everyday activities Tele monitoring devices for aging in place have gained in popularity in recent years including devices for home rehabilitation remote monitoring social well being and fall detection prediction However encouraging older adults to use these devices is still a difficult task One of the challenges of current tele monitoring devices is extended continuous monitoring over months or years Furthermore there are key implementation limitations for aging in place technology false alarms privacy concerns vision obstruction occlusion the need to use the device for long periods of time finite battery life an RF communication failure Recent advances in smart textiles have opened new avenues to address the challenges of conventional tele monitoring systems We propose to design and commercialize a residential wall to wall and up the stairs smart carpet that will substantially improve the ability of older adults to safely age in place The smart carpet will be able to detect falls monitor the ability of a person to rise from the floor and predict when the risk of falls ad frailty are significant based on gradual changes in motor performance This system can also generate alerts to request immediate assistance when needed with minimal false alarms In our pilot study Dr Najafi contact PI and his team at the Interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance iCAMP University of Arizona designed a small scale smart carpet using highly flexible conductive yarn patent pending In this STTR Phase I we will design and build a larger scale smart carpet prototype cm cm with pixel resolution of cm suitable for proof of concept clinical trials to demonstrate its accuracy in detecting postural transitions sitting standing gait falls etc During Phase II a full size smart carpet suitable for residetial use and home tele monitoring will be designed and clinically validated for assessing fall risk frailty and automatic fall detection during daily home use The proposed technology will have a significant impact on the ability of older adults to age in place The smart carpet will screen for fall risk and frailty in older adults which will lead to timely intervention Furthermore this capet can potentially reduce the number of falls among this population which would help alleviate healthcare costs in older adults as well as improve quality of life by allowing them to remain in their homes Continuous in home tele monitoring will also reduce the possibility of injury or death in older adults by requesting immediate assistance after a fall Finally this technology wil provide peace of mind to older adults by reducing their fear of injury and enabling them to feel comfortable aging in place thereby improving their quality of life PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Smart Residential Carpet for Promoting Aging in Place Project Narrative Falls and frailty are significant public health issues for successful aging in place since they are one of the primary causes of injury and death in older adults Current technologies for detecting falls and tele monitoring of fall risk and frailty are often impracticalfor in home applications where continuous monitoring over months or years is required We propose to design and commercialize a residential wall to wall and up the stairs smart carpet based on highly flexible conductive yarn The proposed system can detect falls monitor the ability of a person to rise from the floor and predict when the risk of falls and frailty are significant based on gradual changes in motor performance