Internet of Things (IoT)-Enabled Elderly Fall Verification, Exploiting Temporal Inference Models in Smart Homes

Abstract

Everyday life of the elderly and impaired population living in smart homes is challenging because of possible accidents that may occur due to daily activities. In such activities, persons often lean over (to reach something) and, if they not cautious, are prone to falling. To identify fall incidents, which could stochastically cause serious injuries or even death, we propose specific temporal inference models; namely, CM-I and CM-II. These models can infer a fall incident based on classification methods by exploiting wearable Internet of Things (IoT) altimeter sensors adopted by seniors. We analyzed real and synthetic data of fall and lean over incidents to test the proposed models. The results are promising for incorporating such inference models to assist healthcare for fall verification of seniors in smart homes. Specifically, the CM-II model achieved a prediction accuracy of 0.98, which is the highest accuracy when compared to other models in the literature under the McNemar's test criterion. These models could be incorporated in wearable IoT devices to provide early warning and prediction of fall incidents to clinical doctors.

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT); elderly and impaired; fall verification; healthcare; smart homes; temporal inference model.

Figure 1

Normal probability distribution function (PDF) of $t_F$ (fall values) and $t_B$ (lean over values).

Figure 2

Time vectors of $t_F$ (fall values), $t_I$ (model values), and $t_B$ (lean over values).

Figure 3

Accuracies $a$ and $a^{\prime }$.