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The Baby Boomer generation once dominated the work force and took care of business, but with that generation aging, they now find themselves with multiple health problems and even in the hospital at times. Along with their aging body and comorbidities, they take medications that alter gait and alertness, suffer from visual impairments, and possibly cognitive deficits. This year, The Joint Commision, or TJC, listed "to reduce falls" as one of their National Patient Safety Goals across multiple nursing programs (The Joint Commission, 2024). There are things in place to help reduce falls, such as call lights, bed alarms, and designated "sitters". Unfortunately, those aren't fool proof and falls during hospitalization occur on a daily basis and especially in older adults. Call lights are often forgotten about and the false alarms with bed alarms can cause alarm fatigue and even decrease effectiveness (Hastings, 2022). Some patients are unable to use the standard hospital bed with built in alarms, such as psychiatric patients, who are also at an increased risk due to altered mental status and/or high-risk medications. In an effort to reduce falls, a company called Palarum, has designed PUP Smart Socks to assist healthcare workers with early intervention. These "smart socks" detect high-risk patients attempting to ambulate, through pressure sensors and notify the 3 closest personnel. All patients are assessed for falls when admitted to the hospital, and patients who are deemed a high-risk for falls, will be easily fitted and assigned these socks during the duration of their stay, and then the socks can be recycled once the patient no longer requires them (Hastings, 2022). 2 things I like about this idea is the fact that it is accessible to most psychiatric patients, and they don't require any extra work from patients or healthcare workers, just as long as they keep their socks on. Dementia patients no longer need to push the call light or get upset with bed rails, and workers don't need to triple check to make sure the bed alarm is on. However, it is technology, and it does have cons associated with it, such as how much the fabric and sensors can handle for overweight patients with large legs and amputees who don't have the same pressure distribution. I personally love the idea and think it helps all patients- geriatric, psychiatric, rehab/post-surgery, etc. It's also able to be recycled which is great when healthcare costs are consistently on the rise.

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Researchers at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have tested the PUP (Patient is Up) Smart Socks, developed by a medtech company called Palarum, in their ability to reduce falls among at-risk patients. The socks contain pressure sensors that alert caregivers when a patient is attempting to stand up. This can include situations such as a patient getting out of bed to go to the toilet. The socks can wirelessly communicate with the system, which then alerts the caregivers that are closest to the patient, so that they can arrive and provide assistance as soon as possible. The recent study showed that the system significantly reduced fall rates in patients at high risk of such incidents.

A fall can spell serious consequences for frail and vulnerable patients, and can often be the start of a downward health spiral. It is not typically possible to monitor high-risk patients every minute of the day, but wireless technologies are well-suited to fulfill an assistive role in this context.

"Due to the rapidly aging population, the number of patients at higher risk of falling in hospitals is expected to increase substantially," said Tina Bodine, a researcher involved in the study. "About 30% of in-hospital falls are thought to be preventable, so it's imperative to determine better ways to keep our patients safe from falling while hospitalized."

Falls often happen when a high-risk patient attempts to get out of bed to use the restroom, and this is the time that having a caregiver present to assist can dramatically reduce the risk of such incidents. Current approaches sometimes involve pressure sensors in beds or seating, but these frequently give false alarms, leading to alarm fatigue and reduced effectiveness of such systems.

This new system is present on the patients and staff themselves, in the form of wireless smart socks containing pressure sensors and alert badges that staff wear. The socks alert the three nearest caregivers when a patient attempts to get out of bed, and then the next nearest three if one the first three is not present in the room within the first 60 seconds, and the system progresses to an all-staff call within 90 seconds.

"Patients can fall while they are hospitalized, and this can sometimes lead to injury or death. We know that existing fall prevention measures do not work consistently," said Tammy Moore, another researcher involved in the study. "During our study, we observed zero falls, which was a lower fall rate among the patients wearing these socks than the historical fall rate of 4 falls per 1,000 patient-days."

"A major problem with bed and chair pressure sensors is that the high numbers of false alarms may cause 'alarm fatigue' that can contribute to delayed response," said Bodine. "With this system, no falls were detected, and only 0.2% of the alarms were false alarms. We also analyzed nurse response times that ranged from 1 second to nearly 10 minutes and found that the median nurse response time was 24 seconds."

See a video about the technology below.

Study in Journal of Nursing Care Quality: Prevention With the Smart Socks System Reduces Hospital Fall Rates

Link: Palarum homepage...

Via: Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

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Smart Socks Help Prevent Falls Among At-Risk Patients |

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Researchers at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have tested the PUP (Patient is Up) Smart Socks, developed by a medtech company called Palarum, in their ability to reduce falls among at-risk patients. The socks contain pressure sensors that alert caregivers when a patient is attempting to stand up.

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My 5 Strengths are Futuristic, Context, Restorative, Developer, and Harmony. These strengths coincide with being a great group leader by being able to encourage participation, actively listen to everyone's thoughts, and effectively see issues and have the motivation to fix them. The 5 additional people in my group will be Angelica (Analytical), David (Deliberative) Matthew (Maximizer), Pablo (Positivity), Sheila (Strategic) and William (Woo). Matthew will assist me in identifying everyone's strengths and placing them their prospective roles. William is outgoing and Pablo will be the peace and comedic relief for the group. William and Pablo will work together to keep the good vibes and the face of the project with their outgoing and "can do" attitude. Angelica can problem solve and will be good with studies, David can fine tune his thoughts and determine obstacles, and Sheila is great with spotting patterns/issues and is quick thinking. Angelica, Sheila, David, I will do research, problem solve, and analyze outcomes.

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Published August 25, 2022, to medgadget.com, written by Conn Hastings, PhD.

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Wearable Technologies | WT | Wearable Technologies is the pioneer and worldwide leading innovation and market development platform for technologies worn close to the body, on the body or even in the body.

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Palarum LLC., a Lebanon, Ohio-based startup has developed smart socks that can reduce the chance of patients falling. PUP (Patient is Up) is the most technologically advanced, nurse-centric, patient mobility system in healthcare. The company has raised $3.8 million in a Series A round of funding.

Read more Baby Sock Monitor Firm Owlet Raises $24 Million in Series B Funding

Medical errors are the third leading cause of hospital deaths today. A patient falls in a U.S. hospital every 2 minutes. There are approximately 1 million patient falls in the U.S. hospitals every year. Injuries from patient falls cost acute care hospitals across the U.S. millions of dollars each year.

As chief nursing officer at West Chester Hospital in 2014, Patrick Baker urgently sought a viable solution for a critical hospital problem: patient falls.

"So patient falls and patient safety are big issues in the U.S. hospitals," Baker said. "I've been a nurse for over 30 years, worked at hospitals my whole career and I see the impact patient safety and patient falls have. So what we wanted, we said Ok, patients get a sock because of the non-skid tiles floors, so why not have a smart sock so when the patient hits the floor, it lets the nursing staff know that there's a real-time safety event occurring and we can respond and help that patient before they have a fall."

Baker decided to do something about it. To pursue his idea for a smart patient sock, in 2016 Baker cofounded Palarum LLC, headquartered in Lebanon, Ohio.

Created by research and development team at Palarum, PUP smart sock uses the latest eTextile wearable technology, plus advanced robotics, processing power, and an unprecedented nurse notification system.
Here's how PUP works
The bottom of the sock is made of e-textile material. There are 3 sensors on the bottom of the sock and these are actually fiber woven into the sock, and it carries the message through the sock up to the sensor to communicate to the hospital staff.

When the patient gets out of bed, an alert goes out to the nursing staff, then it'll search and find the three closest nursing staff in real-time. The system is smart enough to know which nurses are on duty, what nurses are in the cafeteria and the three closest nurses will be notified. And then when the nurse walks in the room, it clears the alert by proximity, because the system is smart enough to know that the nurse is in the room it sends a message to the other two that a nurse has already visited the patient.

Read more Smart Clothes Are Available At a Store Near You, Choose the One That Fits You the Best

Baker said this technology can be deployed in hospitals, nursing homes, physical therapy, rehab, at home and more. All you need is a Wi-Fi and the sock will send notifications to the selected nurses.

"We're getting ready to launch a 9-month study at Ohio State University Wexler Medical Center, we're gonna enroll 2,500 patients. We're also embracing Christian villages community in Mason doing physical therapy and rehab applications, and then we also have a weight-bearing application that we're looking for sports orthopedic medicine. So, if the doctor tells you 'hey we want you to be 10% weight bearing on that foot because you had hip or knee surgery,' this sock can actually measure in real-time the weight-bearing application piece," he said.

Sam Draper ( Google+) is Online Editor at WT | Wearable Technologies specialized in the field of sports and fitness but also passionated about any new lifestyle gadget on the market. Sam can be contacted at press(at)wearable-technologies.com.

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PUP Smart Socks Prevent Patient Fall | Wearable Technologies

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An Ohio-based startup has developed smart socks that can reduce the chance of patients falling.

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Hastings, C. (2022, August 25). Smart Socks Help Prevent Falls Among At-Risk Patients |. Medgadget. https://www.medgadget.com/2022/08/smart-socks-help-prevent-falls-among-at-risk-patients.html

The Joint Commission. (2023). National Safety Patient Goals. In jointcommission.org. https://www.jointcommission.org/-/media/tjc/documents/standards/national-patient-safety-goals/2024/all-programs-tjc-npsg-simple-2024_.pdf