A falls prevention system enhanced by artificial intelligence will be officially installed soon at a memory care community operated by Maplewood Senior Living.
The AI tech, AUGi, is being billed as “the world’s first cognitive resident care assistant,” Maplewood representatives said in a statement.
The technology will be deployed within all 84 rooms at Maplewood at Stony Hill in Bethel, CT, a memory care community that caters to older adults living with any stage of Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia.
The platform consists of a wall-mounted sensor to monitor both residents and staff. Within residents’ rooms, the sensors monitor sleeping patterns and general activity, and the AI can then track abnormalities in that pattern.
The sensor system was created jointly by Maplewood and Inspiren, a healthcare tech company that now uses AI in many of its technologies.
Maplewood’s technology is not the only falls detection system that uses AI; innovations to help prevent falls, the leading cause of death among older adults, recently have been developed or installed in senior living spaces by tech startup SafelyYou and machine learning company Lilli.
During the sixth-month trial run at Maplewood’s site Inspir Carnegie Hill in Manhattan, the technology prevented more than 400 falls, the company said.
“AUGi’s ability to monitor, triage and alert staff to critical safety events has been a revolutionary tool for our caregivers,” Brian Geyser, Maplewood’s vice president of health and wellness, said in a statement. “While our staff is already extraordinarily attentive, AUGi acts like an extra set of eyes on our most vulnerable residents, maximizing the productivity of our caregivers while simultaneously enhancing the sense of privacy and independence in our residents.”
Although many older adults remain concerned about incursions into their privacy, all residents at Inspir Carnegie Hill voluntarily opted into using AUGi, leaders there said. In addition to Stony Hill, Maplewood is hoping to add AUGi to other communities in its portfolio soon.
