The Prevention of Falls in Older Adults

An interdisciplinary team of researchers is studying the prevention of falls in older adults using a new motion detection system. Assistant Professor Osamah Rawashdeh, of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has teamed up with Drs. Robert Hammond and Michael Maddens from Beaumont Hospital, with Engineering graduate student Muawea Rawashdeh, and with two former School of Nursing faculty--Marisa Ferrari (now at the University of Michigan) and Barbara Harrison (now at the University of Delaware)--for this project. An article, titled A Pilot Study Testing a Fall Prevention Intervention for Older Adults Determining the Feasibility of a Five-Sensor Motion Detection System, was published in the January 2012 issue of the Journal of Gerontological Nursing (Volume 38, Pages 13-16), concluding that their “the 5S-MDS [five sensor motion detector system] has potential as an early warning system for falls.” For more about this project, the recent OU news article. This research was supported in part by the Center for Biomedical Research.