Robotics enabled in-home environment screening for fall risks

Abstract

Fall risks present in living environment are the leading cause of mortality in older adults. Falling on the floor may cause great harm to older people living alone, which in many cases goes unnoticed for several days until the symptoms become severe. Limited number of trained professionals to assess a house for fall risks and higher costs make the prevention of fall risks inaccessible to many necessitous patients. Removing these potential risk factors can provide older adults a safer living condition for their daily activities. This paper presents the design of a robot control system for in-home environment screening. This system is designed to be capable of supporting both manual and autonomous fall-risk assessment. The developed system allows a teleoperator to assess a house remotely along with capabilities to measure distance between 2 objects, assessing lighting conditions, and interacting with the patient using telepresence.