The Role of a Wearable Electrodermal Activity Sensor in Assessing Individual Fall Risk

Falls are a critical health and safety issue, causing over 46,000 deaths, 8.5 million injuries, and $190 billion in costs annually in the United States. To effectively prevent falls, assessing fall risk is essential to direct interventions such as jobsite or home modifications or physical training programs. Current fall risk assessments mainly rely on wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based methods, which accomplish the assessment by monitoring abnormal body movements when exposed to slip, trip, and fall (STF) hazards. However, wearable IMU-based methods often face a significant challenge in distinguishing body movement induced by STF hazard exposure versus other intended or unintended actions while walking (transitional walking), such as bending and jumping. Both STF hazard exposure and transitional walking similarly induce large abnormal motion patterns, leading to a high likelihood of false positives. To overcome this challenge, this study aimed to examine the feasibility of monitoring physiological arousal via a wearable electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor to differentiate between body movement induced by STF hazard exposure and transitional walking. Because the EDA sensor reliably indicates arousal changes during stress-inducing events, it may help distinguish arousal changes caused by STF hazard exposure—a common type of stressor—from those due to nonhazardous walking. Specifically, this study focuses on daily walking in the built environment to confirm the potential of integrating EDA in typical walking scenarios encountered in everyday routines. To examine this feasibility, EDA data were collected while participants walked an in-lab and outdoor predetermined route. Friedman’s tests and multivariable modeling determined whether the arousal levels differ significantly among regular walking, transitional walking, and STF hazard exposure. The results indicate that STF hazard exposure is accompanied by a significantly higher mean arousal level relative to regular walking and transitional walking (p<0.05). This finding suggests that sensing of physiological arousal via a wearable EDA sensor helps differentiate between STF hazard exposure and other walking activities.