FAL-VITAE

Funded research project

FAL-VITAE Falls and Activity Lexicon: using Video and IMU Technology for remote Assessment and Evaluation

Research lead

Dr Genevieve Williams

Project core team

Sam Fleet
Dr Hilary Gunn
Karen Llewellyn
Professor Majid Mirmehdi
Dr Ezio Preatoni
Dr Naser Taleshi

Hub Research theme

Frailty, fall prediction and fall prevention

Hub Researcher(s) in Residence

Nawid Keshtmand
Miquel Perello Nieto

University of Exeter logo
University of Plymouth logo
University of Bath logo
University of Bristol logo
Jockeycam logo
Bristol Health Partners logo

Background

In the UK, more than 2 million people will fall each year with a quarter of those sustaining a serious injury at an estimated annual cost of £4.4 billion. Detecting fall events and the activities that preceded these falls provides an opportunity to predict and better prevent falls in the future. However, capturing falls and activities in the real world is extremely challenging.

Intended outcomes

The primary goal of the project is to determine the feasibility of identifying the movement, interaction with objects and direction of visual attention of older adults in free living, ecologically valid scenarios, from a range of wall mounted and person worn video camera set ups combined with data from body worn inertial measurement units (IMUs).

The project will combine academic and clinical expertise to consider the most effective methods to detect fall events and the activities that preceded these falls. These methods will underpin groundbreaking future work towards predicting and avoiding falls in the future.