Sensors for Falls and Fall Detection Techniques: From the past to the future

Abstract

Falls are the major problem of today’s world and are a serious public health hazard. As per WHO reports, a large number of deaths and injuries occur every year due to falls. The cost of falls and their consequences presents a great issue for the government as well as for society in public health care. Detection of true falls is a great challenge in the public health care area more specifically for Elderly people. A reliable fall monitoring system is necessary for the detection of falls and for reducing their effects. Hence, an automatic fall detection system is a favorite topic among researchers for more than the last two decades. The advancement of technologies and IoTs in the last few years has enabled the area of automatic fall detection and immediate assistance to mitigate the fall consequences among researchers and healthcare industries. The objective of this paper is to provide a detailed review and discussion on falls and various sensors, technologies, and algorithms introduced by different researchers. The literature search has collected and surveyed 100 related studies from referred journals and conferences based on the keywords. Among these studies, the 54 most relevant and influential articles were chosen for detailed analysis from various perspectives like type, sensors, hardware/software, methodology, and performance. The detailed analysis and findings of this review would help the researchers for understanding various trends, technologies, and challenges available in this area and guiding them in their future directions.

URN:NBN:sciencein.jist.2023.v11.575