Comparison of two techniques for monitoring of human movements

Alarming and/or Alerting Device Effectiveness in Reducing Falls in Long-Term Care (LTC) Facilities? A Systematic Review

“…Alarms are most impactful in reducing falls for residents with cognitive impairments [7,11,12,15,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,28,32,33,34,35]. Alarms also reduce the burden of care placed upon staff [15,17].…”

“…Additionally, alarms seem to increase the likelihood of resident and staff interaction, which is directly related to quality of care [17,22,23,28,30]. Improvements in alarm technology are leading to increased device accuracy and increased resident quality of life [11,15,34]. With proper training and implementation, bed and chair alarms have been shown to improve resident quality of life and nurse efficiency [22,24,25,26,27,31].…”

“…The theme ‘proper implementation of alarms reduces fall risk’ was noted in 10 out of 57 occurrences (17.5%) [15,17,19,28,32,34,35]. As more is learned about alarms in general, an increasing amount of data has been gathered concerning the most effective implementation of alarm systems and how important it is for alarm-use success.…”

“…As more is learned about alarms in general, an increasing amount of data has been gathered concerning the most effective implementation of alarm systems and how important it is for alarm-use success. Several studies mentioned how the proper use of alarms was an effective intervention for those with confusion, agitation, or dementia [15,17,28,32,34,35]. Equally, the effective manipulation of the resident environment to ensure that walkways, bed areas, and use areas are clear of hazards helped to increase alarm efficacy [19,32].…”

“…Equally, the effective manipulation of the resident environment to ensure that walkways, bed areas, and use areas are clear of hazards helped to increase alarm efficacy [19,32]. Proper identification of residents who would benefit the most from the use of properly implemented alarms was also a factor [17,32,34,35]. Alarms should be part of a comprehensive and well-designed plan of interventions for each resident.…”