RTEL is currently participating in SIP EIP AHA Action Group 2: «Personalized health management, starting with a Falls Prevention Initiative», as the coordinator of the Ageing Well commitment.

AgeingWell embraces a broad scope of consensus for risk factors and risk assessments, and provides products and services building upon that evidence-based and well-established scope.
It provides solutions to end-users, and a number of cases in various regions are selected as typical representatives for AgeingWell deliveries.
There are 11 partners from 9 different countries, from SME companies to NGOs, Research Organisations, Universities and National Authorities.

Prevention of falls allows for a wide spectrum of concepts and scopes for understanding risk factors and risk modelling, as a basis for solutions for preventive measures and interventions.
This polarization includes clinicians focusing on medical conditions according to the iatrogenic model, nurses focusing on caring conditions according to the salutogenic model, physiotherapists focusing on motor function and gait, social workers focusing on inclusion aspects, and engineers engaging in gerontechnological solutions. This spectrum also implies a fragmentation of terminology and thereby a lack of common understanding, lack of a “common fall prevention language”, of the causes of falls and effects of interventions. Even within the same domain, e.g. among clinicians, evidence-based studies are not always comparable, as the underlying terminologies used are non-congruent or not comparable enough.

Some studies may even seem contradictory in results, where they are simply “non-congruent in underlying language”. Gerontechnology suffers also as a more formal classification of technical solutions is missing, and thereby also guidelines how to provide and certify impact and quality assurance. AgeingWell aims to ameliorate this situation concerning falls in elderly in regions across Europe by (a) analysis and harmonization of on-going activities, and (b) terminology enrichment of information management and socio-economic modeling of existing solutions for treatment and prevention.

AgeingWell provides an engagement and commitment from industry and SMEs, supported by authorities and research organizations, to deliver services and tools in harmony with the need of the older population and focusing on fall prevention. The overall purpose is to demonstrate the clear link between the headline indicator (HLY) and the main objectives of EIP AHA. AgeingWell thereby provides a multi-modal support for the ageing individual focusing clearly on individual’s needs.

AgeingWell will provide the necessary and sufficient competencies for the maintenance of innovative risk factors and risk modelling framework, based on ontology, which will facilitate the development of the AgeingWell support system for risk assessment. Furthermore, a more strict and ontological view on characteristics will shed light upon understanding the structure also on cohort studies. In fact, evidence based research for falls are not always comparable, as the characteristics used in respective studies are not necessarily in consensus. The main AgeingWell innovations include (a) sound and complete risk assessment framework for fall prevention, (b) tools and services arranged and configured to provide optimal support for decision-making, and (c) social innovations for the individual socio-economic modelling support for the regional authorities.

AgeingWell, among other 70 commitments was selected to coordinate D2.2: Specification of a minimum dataset of Falling Risk Factors, and is one of the core partners actively participating in D1.3: ICT Solutions, devices & technologies for the home and institutional environment and D4.2: Resource Repository.

ACTION PLAN A2
On
Specific Action on innovation in
support of ‘Personalized health management, starting with a
Falls Prevention Initiative’