ToPick: Time-of-Pickup Measurement for the Elderly using Wearables

The ability to pick up objects off the floor can degrade over time with elderly individuals, leading to a reduced quality of life and an increase in the risk of falling. Healthcare professionals have expressed an interest in monitoring the decline in pickup ability of a subject over extended periods of time and intervening when it becomes hazardous to the subject's health. The current means of evaluating pickup ability involving in-clinic patient visits is both time and financially expensive. There is a clear need for a cost-effective, remote means of pickup evaluation to ease the burden on both patients and physicians. To address these challenges, we introduce a Time-of-Pickup (ToP) solution, called ToPick, designed for the automatic assessment of pickup ability over time. The practical performance of ToPick is evident, demonstrated by a minimal median error of approximately 100 milliseconds in evaluating 20 pickup events among 10 elderly individuals. Furthermore, ToPick exhibits a high level of reliability, achieving perfect accuracy, precision, and recall scores for pickup event detection. We actualize our research findings by designing an application intended for adoption by both healthcare practitioners and elderly individuals. The app aims to reduce both time and financial costs while enabling mobile treatment for users.