Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a wearable device to help care for older adults and better diagnose frailty.
Biomedical engineering professor Philipp Gutruf says the device is designed to address frailty, which can lead to falls and hospitalization.
The device is a mesh sleeve that can be worn on the leg and record motion. It incorporates AI, which reduces the need for large data transfers and frequent charging.
“So we have tested this technology on more than 20 people. So the devices, you can think about them as like a mesh that you wear over our sleeve, that you wear on your arm or your leg — in this particular case, the leg,” he said.
Gutruf says commercializing the device still requires further steps.
“In order to get this to the market, we need to still run a larger study with trying to gather resources at the moment to do that, where you involve, you know, hundreds of patients to test the efficacy and safety of the device on a large scale,” he said.
Gutruf says the goal is to make diagnosis more efficient.
The team’s study is published in the Nature Communications journal.
-
Last month, Native American elders were invited to participate in a workshop about the everchanging world of technology. -
Former Democratic Congressman and longtime Tempe Mayor Harry Mitchell died at the age of 86 last week. Mitchell’s accomplishments were many — but one was very personal. -
The Area Agency on Aging in Maricopa County says it’s seeing a rise in the number of older adults who are calling for financial help with their utilities. -
Going without air conditioning in the Arizona summer can be life-threatening. Yet many don’t have access at home because of the cost to replace or repair their units. -
Respondents to a survey in Colorado expressed interest in trying cannabis as an alternative to pharmaceutical medications and because they had exhausted other interventions.
