Maintenance Notice

Due to necessary scheduled maintenance, the JMIR Publications website will be unavailable from Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM EST. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Who will be affected?

Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols

Date Submitted: Sep 21, 2020
Date Accepted: Mar 9, 2021

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

The Geriatric Acute and Post-Acute Fall Prevention Intervention (GAPcare) II to Assess the Use of the Apple Watch in Older Emergency Department Patients With Falls: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

Strauss DH, Davoodi NM, Healy M, Metts CL, Merchant RC, Banskota S, Goldberg EM

The Geriatric Acute and Post-Acute Fall Prevention Intervention (GAPcare) II to Assess the Use of the Apple Watch in Older Emergency Department Patients With Falls: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

JMIR Res Protoc 2021;10(4):e24455

DOI: 10.2196/24455

PMID: 33792553

PMCID: 8050745

The Geriatric Acute and Post-Acute Fall Prevention Intervention (GAPcare) II to Assess the Use of the Apple Watch in Older Emergency Department Patients with Falls: A Mixed Methods Study Protocol

  • Daniel H Strauss; 
  • Natalie M Davoodi; 
  • Margaret Healy; 
  • Christopher L Metts; 
  • Roland C Merchant; 
  • Swechya Banskota; 
  • Elizabeth M Goldberg

ABSTRACT

Background:

Falls are a common problem among older adults that lead to injury, emergency department (ED) visits, and institutionalization. The Apple Watch can detect falls and alert caregivers and clinicians that help is needed and could be used to objectively collect data on gait, fitness, and falls as part of clinical trials; however, little is known about the ease of use of this technology among older adult ED patients - a population at high risk of recurrent falls.

Objective:

We will examine the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of the Apple Watch series 4 paired with the iPhone and our research app “Rhode Island FitTest” (RIFitTest) among older adult ED patients seeking care for falls.

Methods:

We will conduct field-testing with older adult ED patients (n=25) who sustained a fall and their caregivers (n=5) to determine whether they can use the Apple Watch, iPhone, and app either (1) continuously or (2) periodically (with or without telephone assistance from the research staff) to assess gait, fitness and/or falls over time. During the initial encounter, participants will receive training in the Apple Watch, iPhone, and our research app. They will receive an illustrated training manual and a number to call if they have questions about the research protocol or device usage. Participants will complete surveys and cognitive and motor assessments on the app during the study period. At the conclusion of the study, we will solicit participant feedback through semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data will be summarized using framework matrix analyses. Sensor and survey response data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results:

Study recruitment will continue until 30 participants are enrolled.

Conclusions:

GAPcare II will provide insights into the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of the Apple Watch, iPhone, and the RIFitTest app in the population most likely to benefit from the technology – older adults at high risk of recurrent falls. In the future, wearables could be used as part of fall prevention interventions to prevent injury before it occurs. Clinical Trial: NCT04304495


 Citation

Please cite as:

Strauss DH, Davoodi NM, Healy M, Metts CL, Merchant RC, Banskota S, Goldberg EM

The Geriatric Acute and Post-Acute Fall Prevention Intervention (GAPcare) II to Assess the Use of the Apple Watch in Older Emergency Department Patients With Falls: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

JMIR Res Protoc 2021;10(4):e24455

DOI: 10.2196/24455

PMID: 33792553

PMCID: 8050745

Download PDF


Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.

© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.