Researchers at Virginia Tech are using wrist-worn voice recorders to capture real-world data to better understand what happens when people lose their balance. The study, led by Michael Madigan in the College of Engineering, builds on years of his own foundational work and prior research conducted by the University of Michigan Medical School. "In the past, researchers would ask participants to recall what they were doing when they lost their balance, but memory can be unreliable," said Madigan.
"With this new method, participants record their experiences immediately after an incident, providing much more accurate and detailed information." The findings were recently published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society and highlight how voice-recorders captured the moment when participants, who averaged around 72 years of age, lost their balance. The study concludes that among older adults, voice recorders are effective at capturing the circumstances and context in which they lost their balance and potentially fell, without relying on recall later.
Partners: Michael Madigan, professor with the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech Neil Alexander, director, VA Ann Arbor Health Care System GRECC; University of Michigan: Ivan Duff Collegiate Professor of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine; Research Professor, Institute of Gerontology Real-world insight In this study, 30 participants wore voice recorders on their .