Analysing the Correlation of Geriatric Assessment Scores and Activity in Smart Homes

Björn Friedrich,Sebastian Fudickar,Enno-Edzard Steen,Andreas Hein

doi:10.5121/iju.2021.12201

Abstract

A continuous monitoring of the physical strength and mobility of elderly people is important for maintaining their health and treating diseases at an early stage. However, frequent screenings by physicians are exceeding the logistic capacities. An alternate approach is the automatic and unobtrusive collection of functional measures by ambient sensors. In the current publication, we show the correlation among data of ambient motion sensors and the well-established mobility assessments Short-PhysicalPerformance-Battery, Tinetti and Timed Up & Go. We use the average number of motion sensor events as activity measure for correlation with the assessment scores. The evaluation on a real-world dataset shows a moderate to strong correlation with the scores of standardised geriatrics physical assessments.

Highlights

Being in good health and good physical condition is essential for the quality of life and wellbeing of humans
The mobility, balance and muscle-strength of elderly people is usually assessed by physicians or physiotherapists by standardised geriatrics assessments like the Short-Physical-PerformanceBattery (SPPB), Timed Up&Go (TUG) and Tinetti test
The smallest significant correlation is the correlation with the SPPB of participant 10 with 0.23

Summary

Introduction

Being in good health and good physical condition is essential for the quality of life and wellbeing of humans. To address this problem unobtrusive smart home sensors can be facilitated for continuous long-term monitoring of elderly people in their domestic environments. Smart home sensors are respecting the privacy of the inhabitant and are well accepted among the target group They get acquainted to the sensors in a few days and do not notice the sensors anymore [1]. The mobility, balance and muscle-strength of elderly people is usually assessed by physicians or physiotherapists by standardised geriatrics assessments like the Short-Physical-PerformanceBattery (SPPB), Timed Up&Go (TUG) and Tinetti test. Those assessments must be performed under the supervision of a professional. The studies found that the performance is more clinically relevant than the capacity [6]

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