Studies on the Fall Patterns for the Development of a Fracture Prevention System

In recent years, the importance of the characterization of fall for a fracture prevention system keeps increasing since fracture from a fall can lead to serious health problems. Fall is one of the major sources which increase morbidity in elderly people. In terms of the cost and the influence to the quality of life, the most serious injury with hip fractures is caused by falls. The traditional methods in characterizing fall patterns have been mainly by the epidemiological surveys. With surveys, the exact data of fall patterns can not been acquired. In this paper, we measured and analyzed with the parameters related to fall pattern such as velocities and accelerations during the motion of falls using 3D motion capture program. We acquired the parameters of the fall pattern of intentional and unexpected fall. The result showed that the variation of velocity and acceleration during fall was very important in characterizing fall pattern, which of vital importance for the development of a fracture prevention system and for the safety of the elderly.