Robert Bosch Foundation for Medical Research (RBMF) will contribute its clinical expertise, networks and access to high‐risk populations, a long experience with observational studies and its profound knowledge in falls. RBMF main contributions will be:
1. Recruitment of participants and participating centres for fall detection.
2. Conducting and supervising the measurement process.
3. Co‐ordination of the participating clinical partners for the high‐risk groups.
4. Co-ordination of the database.
Beyond the work in WP6, RBMF will provide its clinical expertise within WP4 especially in accessing high risk groups. RBMF will also participate in WP2 and WP5.
RBMF is the research hospital of a charity foundation (Robert Bosch Stiftung). Research activities and teaching is attached to the Universities of Tuebingen, Stuttgart and Ulm. The members of the research team currently include 6 fulltime post‐doc positions in medical engineering, medicine, sport science, and psychology. R&D activities include different fields of geriatric medicine. The department is currently running several Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) with complex interventions focusing on fall prevention and improving physical activity in frail community living elderly including several hundred participants. A second interest is translational research with the dissemination of exercise intervention programs for several thousand older citizens in nursing homes. This enables access to large cohorts of community dwellers and persons living in institutions. Ongoing research activities are the monitoring of physical activity in older people and the recording and analysis of real‐world falls data measured with body fixed sensors. The RMBF has longstanding experience with various types of body fixed sensors (MiniMod, Physilog, activPAL) and their application in large cohorts. Basic research is done within a newly build movement laboratory including a full body video tracking walkway (VICON) with 4 force plates , a high speed video camera and equipment to assess balance and sit‐to‐stand transfer. Research is also done in the field of virtual reality. This includes a large 3D video projections screen combined with a treadmill and optoelectronic tracking. The geriatric clinical department has 80 beds and a day clinic for 20 patients. More than 1,400 patients are being treated annually. Major topics are stroke, hip fractures, Parkinson’s disease, immobilisation and amputation of lower limbs. Outpatient services are offered for elderly persons with cognitive impairment and low physical activity. The director of the department, Prof. Becker, participated in EU funded scientific research as a work package leader of “Prevention of Falls Network Europe” (ProFaNE) and “SENSing and ACTION to support mobility in Ambient Assisted Living” (SENSACTION‐AAL).
Prof Clemens Becker
Dr Klaus Pfeiffer
Dr. Jochen Klenk
Dr Ulrich Lindemann
