Changing the Odds: Why Falling is NOT a Natural Aspect of Aging

As the CEO and co-founder of Helpany , an award-winning AgeTech startup based in San Francisco and Switzerland, I have spent over 7 years focusing on falls, healthy aging, and the complexities of getting older. Caregivers are heroes, and family members often face the burden of care alone. Older adults deserve better. It is our generational duty and my mission, as an engineer by training, to build outstanding products and solutions to meet the needs of older adults.

This blog article will explore various challenges and aspects of aging, particularly within long-term care communities, which are often unknown or overlooked.

Long-term care facilities face complex and multifaceted challenges. Firstly, their clientele, older adults, have health issues due to age, lifestyle choices, or genetics. These health problems evolve during their stay, creating a dynamic environment with many changing variables. Accidents, such as falls, can immediately alter an individual's journey. Recovery times for older adults are longer than for younger individuals. Their overall health state before such accidents will likely determine if they can fully recover without further rapid decline in their health and biological age.

Long-term care facilities must cope with unpredictable events like falls daily, as the economic consequences are significant. Falls are a primary source of resident move-outs, liability insurance claims, formal investigations, substantial administrative overhead, and shortened lease durations. Each fall imposes a significant financial burden and creates lasting ripple effects within the organization. Most importantly, falls lead to human suffering for residents, family members, and caregivers alike.

It is important to realize that falling is not a natural part of aging. Falls are adversarial events, probabilistic by nature, and not predetermined. To put it simply: falling is not a predetermined fate. Often, falls are portrayed as inevitable, but this is not true. If they were, all older adults would suffer falls during their lifetime, which is not the case. The likelihood of falling is influenced by many factors, many of which are within the control of older adults and their support systems (family members, caregivers, etc.).

Straightforward and pragmatic measures, such as proper shoes, handrails, better lighting, regular tidying of living spaces, and walking aids, can lower the likelihood of falling and should be fundamental to any fall prevention effort. These interventions can significantly reduce the overall likelihood of falling, and ideally, some falls can be completely mitigated.

Complicating things are the more subtle and often invisible factors that influence individual fall risk. These include medication, undiagnosed diseases like diabetes, sleep apnea, nocturia (frequent nighttime bathroom visits), insomnia, urinary tract infections, low or decreasing gait speeds, sedentary behavior, activity levels, and even social isolation. These risk factors can be non-observable or only partially observable. Older adults may not realize that these factors matter. Caregivers sometimes lack the awareness, education, training, and access to high-quality data needed to identify these risks. Currently, they rely mainly on qualitative data from one-off verbal assessments and interviews with residents. Consequently, these clues about individual fall risks are not used or incorporated into fall-risk mitigation efforts.

To be clear, falls that are accidents by nature, such as tripping over an object on the floor, can always happen. However, just as driving with untreated impaired vision increases the likelihood of an accident—where milliseconds in detection can make a difference—these previously mentioned fall-risk factors can inform older adults about their individual likelihood of falling and provide insights into their overall health state.

When we start to view falls as a probabilistic phenomenon—not a predetermined fate—long-term care facilities must reconsider their approach to tackling this problem. "Changing the odds" on a community level can make a significant difference. Accident-based falls will still occur, but access to data can unveil previously hidden information, radically transforming fall prevention efforts.

The main purpose of Helpany 's radar-based technology is to unveil hidden information, empowering older adults, their circle of care, and long-term care facilities to change the odds in their favor. We provide information that can help older adults and their caregivers better manage fall risks. By being more proactive, they can potentially reduce their individual likelihood of falling.

Through its privacy-preserving nature (no cameras or microphones) and advanced AI-based technology, it is scalable, economically viable, and inclusive, usable at all levels of care within a long-term care facility.

After setting the scene, the next articles will delve deeper into various components related to falls, such as fall risk factors, why gait speed is considered the 6th vital sign, the many aspects of healthy aging, and why caregivers deserve solutions with operational elegance, not just another gadget.

Thank you for reading,

Sandro

PS: If you liked this article, be sure to follow me, Sandro Cilurzo , and Helpany on LinkedIn.