Innovative Clothing Incorporates Airbags for Extra Protection
There are millions of people who will break their bones this year and seniors are especially vulnerable to falling down and breaking something.
There aren't many solutions on the market to try and offer some effort to address this. You can find canes or scooters etc, but what about protective clothing? That's what some inventors have looked to explore.
Around the world there are different items that have already been developed.
In the Netherlands for example there is a personal airbag item previously created which is meant to be worn like a belt, it is able to sense when the person might fall over and it inflates if that is about to happen giving them a soft cushion to land on.
In the video above you can see how it is demonstrated to where the belt inflates to prevent injury. This item is something to bring a real solution to a problem that impacts millions of seniors around the world.
Other clothing items that have also been created are vests that similarly inflate if they sense the wearer is going to fall over.
One of those vests is wearable technology that was designed by SAF-T Systems and it uses tiny sensors to detect when someone is out of balance and deploys airbags if needed to try and reduce that injury.
While there are millions of seniors who don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on an item like this, these products do provide some solution for those who want an extra level of peace of mind that might come from knowing airbags would deploy if they started falling over.
The airbags on the belt and vest can deploy instantly and it might mean the difference in reducing some of that injury for the wearer if they were to fall, that is the hope with this sort of innovation.
One issue with this sort of innovation in this space however has been that those customers who might need the product aren't that open to wearing it, not yet for some of those products anyways.
There needs to be more affordable options in this market space too.
The more it stands out or looks odd for someone who is wearing it then the harder time they are likely to have in attracting customers to embrace it.
Sources: https://www.fastcompany.com/3040932/this-wearable-airbag-protects-the-elderly-when-they-fall https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/7/16860374/hipair-elderly-tech-health-fall-prevention-wearables-ces-2018 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8928703/Wearable-airbag-belt-inventions-Global-Grad-2020.html https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/outreach/communities-that-kare/communities-that-kare-team-creates-device-to-save-seniors-from-fall-injuries/89-5050b2d3-6a24-426b-8897-59969904c1f7
