Published on June 22nd 2010

For old people, fall rhymes with risk of fracture of femur’s neck. A consequence which can turn out traumatizing for the victims. To prevent and protect from this risk, many solutions, more or less absurd, were imagined.
The HELITE company proposes an original solution: an airbag. Having already applied this system to the riders and the motorcyclists, since seven years he has developed a new who would allow, as a garment, “a complete and effective protection”. This flexible garment, as a belt, wouldn’t present embarrassment for the person. During a fall, sensors who equip this system, are supposed to detect the fall before impact, and then an air volume swells around the hips of the person.
It is this detection which raised more problems. The company explains that “it is necessary to detect the fall in advance to bring a fast protection”. To achieve that, a very precise adjustment of the electronics components is needed, that adjustment is thing done. But not any marketing is planned for the moment.
“It still remains to be working the comfort and the ergonomics, but especially the tests”, as it is explain by the company. These scientific tests will be realized on dummies, make up of bones reconstituted various osteoporosis’s types.
It will thus necessary to wait to be able to be make an opinion on this new system, which should cost approximately 500 € (450 £).
 

Presented as a belt, the airbag deploys to protect the hips.

Conflict of interest:
The author (Read more)