Fall Detection: Using Technology to Prevent Falls and Save Lives

Abstract Companies, providers, and consumers alike are increasing the use of technology in almost every industry. This increase in usage occurs simultaneously in a technology marketplace characterized by rapid evolution in design and products. Recent years have witnessed the surge of various technological products and solutions in the age-tech marketplace, particularly in senior living and many related to fall detection and prevention interventions. Falls can have a widespread and significant impact on health, can be deadly, and often result in high costs for individuals and older adult living facilities. One out of four older adults fall each year. Findings from a pilot project illustrate the total incident count for a 12-month period. Findings demonstrate the importance of having a complete solution for falls and a fall detection solution in place in an assisted living environment. Ideal environments for residents, families, staff, and those working in the facility with regard to smart tech are considered. It is important to consider how can these solutions empower residents and afford people autonomy and safety through dignified technology.

cancer diagnosis and having a breast removed through a mastectomy, affect their masculine subjectivities and practices, as they also go about also living with a life-threatening illness?The present study aimed to better understand how men come to live with the knowledge that they have both breasts and cancer.Interviews with seventeen men in the U.S. (mean age 62.8) with a breast cancer diagnosis, mastectomy, and, most often, post-surgical hormonal treatment uncovered stories of body-self disruption and identity dilemmas.All the men's identities had been shaken.After their mastectomy, they were reminded every morning that the body reflected in the mirror differed significantly from who they once were.Their stories revealed strategic themes: how they lived with cancer by slightly modifying conventional masculinities; and how others interacted with them, with the exception of mammography technologists, in terms of their gender, not their atypical illness.Only a few men initially felt their breast cancer was a gendered stigma.Noticeable was how the historical era when diagnosed and the age of the man at diagnosis contextualized their illness stories.In this presentation, three cases are used to exemplify the men's varied experiences with their non-normative bodies and their commonality in finding reserves of masculine capital to rebuke the existential loneliness of a man with breast cancer.COVID-19 has highlighted increasing reliance on information and communication technology (ICT) and challenges in access and use.ICT access also provides resources that benefit users' mental health.Our study describes changes in the use of ICT before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among cancer patients with and without dementia.We identified 196 (1.6 million weighted population) older adults with a self-reported cancer history who participated in both 2019 and 2020 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS).In 2019, cancer patients with dementia (9.9%) were less likely (adjusted OR 0.29; 95%CI, 0.11-0.78) to use information technology (IT) for health matters (contacting medical providers, handling health insurance matters, obtaining information about health conditions, and ordering prescription refills) compared to those without dementia.In contrast, dementia status was not associated with communication technology (CT) use (email or texts) or IT use for personal tasks (grocery shopping or online banking).IT use for personal tasks was inversely associated with anxiety symptoms (adjusted OR 0.22; 95%CI:0.06-0.83)and CT use was inversely associated with depressive symptoms (adjusted OR 0.25 (95%CI:0.07-0.97).In 2020, regardless of dementia status, all cancer patients increased their virtual (email/phone/video) contact with family, friends (3.4%-7.0%),and medical providers (17.2%-36.2%)while decreasing in-person contact (10.0%-15.7%and 21.8%-24.2%,respectively) during the pandemic.This study suggests that there are potential unmet daily needs for patients with comorbid cancer and dementia that may be met with improved ICT access.Such challenges are of increasing concern as COVID-19 has resulted in increased ICT reliance for older adults.

A QUALITATIVE INQUIRY ON SELF-MANAGEMENT DECISION MAKING AMONG RURAL AFRICAN AMERICANS WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES Idethia Shevon Harvey, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, United States
Living in a rural area has been recognized as a unique health disparity associated with higher rates of chronic disease.It is further compounded for those who are the most structurally vulnerable complicating access to care and negatively affecting health outcomes.Barriers to type 2 diabetes (T2DM) self-management remain a growing concern, particularly among minority communities living in underserved geographical areas.Much of the self-management research focused on compliance with medication regimens and modification of lifestyle choices.A less well-understood but arguably more critical aspect is the social factors in disease management decision-making.Purposive sampling was used to identify rural African Americans (n = 34).The mean age of participants was 65.9 years (SD = 12.3), and T2DM diagnosis was 15 years (SD = 12.4).The study utilized the consensual qualitative research methodology and the "Sort and Sift, Think and Shift" approach to identify themes.The participants reported an alternative way of integrating glucose monitoring through a "feedback loop" of body sensing.The longer they live with the condition (i.e., knowing my body), the more they can interpret whether they are hypoglycemic or hyperglycemic (i.e., deciphering the cues) to create and navigate their disease management strategy (i.e., body sensing).Self-management decision-making is a complex developmental process that includes disease trajectory and cultural and environmental factors.Findings from this study may provide a conceptual framework for ongoing inquiry and may provide insights to help T2DM educators and clinicians fully understand the complexity of long-term disease management among rural African Americans.

FALL DETECTION: USING TECHNOLOGY TO PREVENT FALLS AND SAVE LIVES Lydia Manning, Dele Health Tech, United States
Companies, providers, and consumers alike are increasing the use of technology in almost every industry.This increase in usage occurs simultaneously in a technology marketplace characterized by rapid evolution in design and products.Recent years have witnessed the surge of various technological products and solutions in the age-tech marketplace, particularly in senior living and many related to fall detection and prevention interventions.Falls can have a widespread and significant impact on health, can be deadly, and often result in high costs for individuals and older adult living facilities.One out of four older adults fall each year.Findings from a pilot project illustrate the total incident count for a 12-month period.Findings demonstrate the importance of having a complete solution for falls and a fall detection solution in place in an assisted living environment.Ideal environments for residents, families, staff, and those working in the facility with regard to smart tech are considered.It is important to consider how can these solutions empower residents and afford people autonomy and safety through dignified technology.

RISK PERCEPTION AND COMMUNAL COPING IN FAMILIES AFFECTED BY TYPE 2 DIABETES
Jielu Lin, 1 Melissa Zajdel, 1 Melanie Myers, 2 and Laura Koehly, 1 1.National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 2. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States Despite a recent decline, rates of type 2 diabetes remain high among older adults.Preventing and delaying the onset of the condition with lifestyle changes is key to reducing disease burden in the population.Type 2 diabetes is a complex disease, likely a result from the joint effect of genetic, socioenvironmental and lifestyle risk factors that are clustered in families.As such, the prevention of type 2 diabetes is a communal coping process, where individuals communicate about risk and establish routines to facilitate one another's health habits and compliance with therapeutics.This poster investigates how such a process is affected by one's perception of risk based on his/her knowledge about family health history (FHH).We collected family network data from families of different racial backgrounds in the greater Cincinnati area (28 white and 17 black/ African American households; 127 participants).The analysis focuses on how the density of diabetes diagnosis in one's FHH affects communication about shared risk for type 2 diabetes and encouragement to maintain or adopt a healthy lifestyle.Results suggest a higher concentration of diabetes diagnosis in one's FHH is associated with a higher number of risk communication ties in all families.With regards to encouragement ties, high rates of diabetes diagnosis in FHH are associated with an increased number of encouragement ties only in families of black/African heritage.The findings highlight the need and promise of using FHH to motivate co-encouragement to maintain/adopt a healthier lifestyle in families of black/ African heritage.

THE EVALUATION OF SMART SPEAKER SKILLS FOR CHRONIC DISEASE MANAGEMENT OF OLDER ADULTS
Melissa Pighin, 1 and Yong Kyung Choi, 2 1.University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California, United States,

University of California Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, California, United States
A voice-activated smart speaker is an emerging technology that presents unique opportunities to support the chronic disease management of older adults.We identified the available health-related smart speaker skills in Amazon Alexa platform that support chronic disease management and assessed their functionalities to inform the development of a home-based lifestyle intervention program for older adults with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.From January to March 2021, we searched Alexa Skills using keywords related to diabetes, medication, blood pressure and nutrition management.Our search produced total 156 potentially relevant skills (63 diabetes, 57 medication, 11 blood pressure and 25 nutrition related), of which 22 skills met inclusion criteria.Apps were excluded if it was only informational, not relevant to the topic, had zero user rating, available in language other than English, and required an external device or a subscription to a specific health plan or service.22 skills (4 diabetes, 8 medication, 3 blood pressure and 7 nutrition) were evaluated with Echo Show 8 device.The skills were evaluated using the modified version of IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics app functionality scores and the score (0 to 11) was calculated accordingly.The median number of functionalities was 3.5 and 68% of skills (15/22) had 4 or fewer functions.The highest rated skill was a medication management app named myNurseBot having 6 out of 11 functionalities.The poor functionality score highlights a need for a more robust and comprehensive smart speaker skill to support the health management of older adults.

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN RETIREMENT AND THE SOCIOEMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF PANDEMIC TIME Boroka Bo, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States
This research integrates literature from the sociology of the life course, sociology of emotions and the sociology of time to examine how Socioeconomic Status (SES) influenced retiree civic engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.I find that SES framed both the social experience of time and the prevalent emotions experienced by retirees while physically distancing during the early days of the pandemic.These individual-level experiences translated to markedly different blueprints for civic engagement.High-SES retirees were more likely to 'go global', organizing to advocate for their interests.Conversely, low-SES retirees were more likely to 'turn in', minimizing their civic engagement.My findings reveal how existing sociopolitical inequalities may become further entrenched in public health crises.Policies aimed at combating inequalities in later life also need to consider socioemotional and sociotemporal factors.

INTERNALIZED AGE STEREOTYPES AS A MEDIATOR BETWEEN VOLUNTEERING AND PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH FOR ADULTS 50+
Andrew Steward, 1 Leslie Hasche, 2 and Julie Anne Laser-Maira, 2 1.University of Denver,Lone Tree,Colorado,United States,2. University of Denver,Denver,Colorado,United States The productive aging literature describes a wide range of psychosocial benefits of volunteerism for older adults.A growing, compelling body of literature drawing from stereotype embodiment theory identifies significant, negative public health impacts of internalized age stereotypes.Yet, little research has explored which activities may reduce internalized ageism and enhance psychosocial health as people age.This cross-sectional study examined whether internalized age stereotypes mediate the relationship between

-COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE ROLE OF DEMENTIA Weixin
Li, 1 Katherine Ornstein, 2 Yan Li, 3 and Bian Liu, 2 1. Icahn school of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Long island city, New York, United States, 2. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States, 3. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States