Wearable movement monitoring to spot fall risk in older adults
Official title: Using instrumented everyday gait to predict falls in older adults using the WHS cohort
Funded at Brigham and Women's Hospital · NIH-11307017 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project uses a small wearable sensor worn during daily life to find walking and activity patterns that help identify older adults who are more likely to fall.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Brigham and Women's Hospital NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Boston, United States) |
| Project start | June 1, 2023 |
| Project end | February 28, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $626,485 |
| NIH project number | 5R01AG078256-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11307017 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are community-dwelling older adults (typically aged 65 and older) who can walk in daily life and wear a small sensor for about a week.
✕Less likely to help
People who are non-ambulatory, living in institutional settings, or unable to wear or tolerate the sensor (for example due to severe cognitive impairment) may not benefit from this approach.
What this research studies
You would wear a small accelerometer for about a week while going about your normal daily activities so the device can record walking speed, step patterns, and overall activity levels. Researchers will analyze measures like gait speed, step variability, and how activity changes across the week to see which patterns link to later injurious falls. The work uses data from a large cohort of community-living older adults and compares everyday monitoring to standard clinic tests. The goal is to develop a practical way to find people who could benefit from fall-prevention programs earlier.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could help identify older adults at high risk of falling earlier so they can get tailored prevention like exercise programs or home safety changes.
How similar studies have gone: Smaller studies have shown promising links between wearable gait measures and fall risk, but larger-scale validation in diverse older adults is still needed.
Where this research is happening
-
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Boston, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wayne, Peter Michael — Brigham and Women's Hospital
- Study coordinator: Wayne, Peter Michael
Related research
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.