Fall detection prototype for Thai elderly in mobile computing era

In Thailand, it is very common for people to own at least one mobile phone. This is also the ease for elderly people. They tend to feel that mobile phone is necessary for their safety and convenient in everyday living. This paper discusses our mobile application that is aimed to support independent living for the Thai elderly. Falls in the elderly people often cause serious physical injury such as fracture, cerebral hemorrhaging or even death. To be able to detect falls as early as possible is a very important method in rescuing the subjects and to facilitate the rehabilitation in the future. In this paper, we use a tri - axial accelerometer that is embedded in the mobile phone to monitor the movements of human body. The application also supports children and caters so that they are being notified when the fall is detected. As a result, they are also able to show their care and love to the elderly at the right time. We proposed a threshold - based concept to be applied to the changes of the parameters from the tri - axial accelerometer. The results show that this application can detect the falls and notify children and care takers of the elderly effectively.