Yoshihumi Nishida

Handrail-Shaped IoT Sensor for Long-Term Monitoring of the Mobility in Elderly People

Cognitive and physical functions gradually decline because of aging. To support healthy and safe living of elderly individuals, a system that can monitor their activities of daily living is needed. This paper proposes a handrail-shaped sensor as a new Internet of Things (IoT)-type sensing system for long-term monitoring of the mobility of elderly people. The handrail-shaped sensor detects changes in mobility using information on movement velocity and the degree of dependence on the handrail. To evaluate the effectiveness of the sensor, we first assessed the accuracy of estimating the position of the load applied to the handrail in our laboratory. We then field-tested the handrail sensor in the home of an 88-year-old woman. The experimental results show that the handrail sensor can estimate the walking speed as well as the grasping position of an elderly person in an actual daily living environment.

Behavior Monitoring with Non-wearable Sensors for Precision Nursing

Non-wearable sensors utilizing advanced image-processing and sensing technologies for capturing an individual’s behavior in real-world settings are now available. Wearable sensors are difficult to use, especially for long-term recordings, because the batteries for these sensors must be exchanged or recharged. Behavioral data collected using non-wearable sensors can be used for precision nursing, which indicates individualized risk management and intervention plan based on the understanding of individual risk and other health status. In this study, we applied the developed non-wearable technologies to evaluate a person’s gait ability, which is an important factor for creating a fall prevention program.

The Digital Crystal Ball: A Service Recommendation System for Designing Social Participation Experiences Among the Elderly

Social participation contributes to a higher quality of life for the elderly. However, an effective way to promote social participation has not been fully established. Conventional technologies for service recommendations have several limitations, such as a lack of or limited consideration of lifestyle, health status, physical capabilities, and desired experiences of the elderly for a recommended service. In this study, with the objective of promoting social participation among the elderly, we developed a service recommendation system called the “Digital Crystal Ball” through the establishment of two functions. The first function is to recommend social services based on the subjective experiences that the elderly want, and the second function is to suggest available transportations in order to utilize the recommended services in consideration of the physical capabilities of the elderly. Here we describe the details, experience, and usefulness of our service recommendation system in Minamisouma, a city in Fukushima Prefecture in northern Japan.

99 A new system for sharing and informing serious incidents among multiple nursing facilities

Background Nursing facilities hold a big problem in preventing accidents including “slip” and “fall”. To prevent injury, it is required to collect a large number of data and analyse causal factors t related to injury, such as devices and environments, care worker’s action, physical function and action of care receivers, and to share characteristics and patterns of injury in nursing facilities. But now it is difficult to collect and share injury data. Methods In this study, we implement a new system with two functions using a latest cloud computing technology; i) A function to accumulate and search important injury data using a geographical-information-system-like software, and ii) a function to find and inform fatal or serious injury that facility staff should know by considering kinds of nursing tasks performed in the target facility. By applying the developed method into three nursing facilities, we confirmed the effectiveness of the system. Results We collected 115 incident cases in total and input these incident data using the developed system; The system consists of a cloud server system and three client systems corresponding to three facilities. For example, using the system, staff could share not only statistics but also the concrete incident information as follows. By inputting a target moving route in order of “Cabin, Cafeteria, Water Closet, and Caregiver Station”, the system find and inform a serious injury case occurred in the other facilities such as “a patient stood up and slipped before raising the underwear after elimination in the toilet.” Conclusions We verified that it was possible to share and inform important serious injury among nursing facilities. The advantages of the proposed cloud-computing-type system lie in 1) a large number of data can be collected by sharing the data among multiple facilities using the system even if the number of incident in a single facility is relatively small, and 2) facility staff can find important serious injury that might occur in the facility.

REVISION OF JAPANESE SAFETY STANDARDS OF BICYCLE WHEEL GUARD FOR PREVENTING CHILDHOOD INJURY DUE TO WHEEL SPOKE

Background/Purpose Based on our collected 17 966 cases of injury data, frequency distributions of injured parts of body (figure 1) can be calculated and it is useful for understanding trends of injuries. One of the most frequently injured parts due to bicycle is heel. We found more than 80% of the cases are injury due to wheels spoke when children sit on a rear seat. To improve bicycle, it is necessary to collect childrens body size data, especially data on the region that childrens heel can reach. Figure 1 Frequency distribution of injury due to bicycle. Figure 2 Visualising software of reachable range. Methods To clarify the reachable range of childs foot when they sit on rear seat, we conducted an experiment for measuring childs body size and we developed software for estimating reachable range based on the measured body size data. The subjects are 197 children aged from 1-year-old to 9-years-old. Results The result shows that the average value increases about 24 mm as a childs age increases 1-year-old. The safety standard of bicycle wheel guard was revised in November 2011 based on our data. According to revised standard, distance between seating face of rear seat and rear wheel must be more than 350 mm. Conclusions We found that data on injured body parts is useful for identifying a problem due to a consumer product such as a bicycle since it allows us to analyse injury data statistically and visually. To solve the identified problem, systematic measurement of childrens body size is required.

Development of consumer product design tools for considering child safety

Background Tools for supporting design of consumer products that is safe for children is strongly needed. Conventionally, toy companies and other child related consumer product manufacturers developed such tools by themselves. However medium and small companies whose main products are not for children have difficulty in developing such tools by themselves. Purpose This study develops commonly usable tools for childsafe consumer products design even if main users of the products are not children. Methods The authors developed some tools for supporting childsafe consumer product design using the measure data of 2228 childrens aged 6 months old to 13-years-old by cooperating human engineering researchers with product designers. These data have been accumulated by Research Institute of Human Engineering for Quality Life (HQL) and National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) since 2005 in Japan. The data includes over 50 kinds of body measurements. Results The authors developed a data book on the measure of Japanese child (Fig. 1), a portable measure of child (Fig. 2), and portable absolute scale models of child (Fig. 3). For example, the portable measure of child draws the thickness of the index finger of 1-year-old child as well as it can be used as an ordinary scale. At this moment, 1 to 6-year-old measures are available. Significance This study developed commonly usable tools for childsafe consumer products design. The authors plan to disseminate the developed tools through seminar, publication, and lecture at colleges and professional schools.

Development of risk assessment system of child's femur and forearm fracture due to air-filled play equipment and recommendation regarding its safe use

Background Recently, the number of injuries due to play equipment consisting of an air-inflated membrane has been rapidly increasing. For example, a child fractures his femur when he is jumping on the play equipment and an adult is also jumping around him. Purpose Research to understand the dynamics of the air-inflated membrane structures is strongly required. Methods We developed a childs femur impactor (figure 1) to measure the impact force on the femur when the child falls on the equipment and examined the dynamics of the play equipment. Figure 1 Play equipment and femur impactor. Results We conducted drop experiments to measure the impact force applied to the femur when landing on the equipment in the situation that a single child fall from a high position. The experimental result indicates that the impact force in the case of a single fall is proportional to both the collision velocity and the weight. Second, we studied the characteristics of the play equipment when two or more people are jumping. The experiment using the impactor revealed the new finding that the propagation of the membrane tension generated by a jumping adult can cause a fracture of the femur bone of a child around the adult. The computer simulation also supports the findings (figure 2). Figure 2 Computer simulation of propagation of impact. Significance This new finding suggests that a new safety standard for equipment consisting of air-inflated membrane structure is required especially regarding the weight and the number of adults playing with children.

Design of safe consumer product based on children behaviour model constructed from behaviour observation: case study of playground equipment

This study presents behaviour-model-based product design as a new approach to safe product design for children. Ubiquitous sensing technology and statistical modelling technology allows us to quantitatively observe and record children behaviour and thus acquire children behaviour model from the large-scale sensory data. This study proposes a system for modelling children behaviour and designing consumer product based on the developed behaviour model. The proposed system consists of a wearable sensor for spatially and temporally measuring children behaviour in an everyday setting together with Bayesian network modelling technology to acquire a children behaviour model. We consider this system from both the theoretical and practical viewpoints. The theoretical framework describes a behavioural model in terms of spatial statistics. The practical aspect of this paper is concerned with a case study in which the proposed system is used to create a new type of playground equipment that is safer for children, in order to demonstrate the practical effectiveness of the system. In this case study, we conducted in situ measurement of 47 children playing with equipment by a wireless wearable location – electromyography sensor that the authors developed in cooperation with a kindergarten. A model on childrens climbing behaviour was created from the measured data. By cooperating with a playground equipment maker, a new climbing wall type of equipment was developed and the developed equipment was installed at a kindergarten. This study also evaluates the performance of the model statistically by observing children playing with the developed equipment using cameras for over 1 year.

Effects of computer-generated animations on parental perceptions toward childhood injuries

Parents often underestimate their childrens susceptibility to unintentional injuries, which may lead to non-use of prevention measures. To correct this perception, we exposed parents of small children to computer-generated short animations of five typical injurious situations in Japanese home environments and information about injury susceptibility and severity. Animations depicted: falling from a chair; electrical shock at an outlet; bathtub drowning; accidental ingestion of a button battery; and thermal injury by a rice cooker. Animations were created based on injury surveillance data, and motion capture data and body size data of average Japanese children. A total of 91 parents, including seven males, with children between 0.5 and 2 years old participated in the study through the Internet. (There were no statistically significant differences between genders in responses.) Half of the participants (n=44) watched only the five animations (Animation-only). The other half (n=47) watched the five animations and information about injury susceptibility and severity (animation + information). No difference was observed between the two groups in perception toward severity of injuries. However, the Animation + information group perceived their own childrens susceptibility to the injuries higher than the Animation-only group, and the differences between the two groups were statistically significant in three of the five situations; fall, thermal injury, and drowning. Results suggest that animation is useful to get parents attention to childhood injury and severity by showing the moment of injury; however, adding information about injury consequences may be more effective in increasing parental feelings of injury susceptibility of own children.

Quantitative risk assessment of the swing in a park by integrating injury data, behaviour observation data and biomechanical simulation technology

Injury prevention is one of the most important and urgent issue in children health since the primary cause of death of children is unintentional injuries. Developing safety measures based on injury data are essential for preventing childhood injuries. Passive approach, namely Injury prevention approach by product modification is strongly needed. The risk assessment is one of the most fundamental methods to design safety products. However, the conventional risk assessment has been carried out subjectively because product makers have poor data on injuries. Developing methodology quantitative risk assessment for injury prevention is required by product makers. This paper proposes a new system for risk assessment by integrating biomechanical simulation, sensory observation data on how childrens use products, and hospital-based injury surveillance data. The system allows a product designer for foreseeing how children use a product and which types of injuries occur due to the product in daily environment. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed system, this paper describes the application of the system to risk analysis of the swing in a park. In order to obtain childrens behaviour data around the swing, video cameras were installed in the park. The camera image of behaviour data was analysed by image processing. As for injury data, authors used detailed injury data collected in hospitals using the body graphic information system developed by authors. The developed system can search the candidate of possible situation resulting in serious injuries using sensory data and injury data, and evaluate risk quantitatively in terms of head injury criteria (HIC) using biomechanical simulation.