ProSAFe - Personal PROtection Against Fall injuries - to enhance quality of life for the elderly!

Purpose and goal

Prosafe aims at developing widely accepted, used and affordable personal protective equipment with balanced technical performances and comfort to improve the quality of life of the elderly. In this first stage, a dialog with the care sector was initiated to identify key stakeholders and set up an enlarged consortium for the continuation of the project. Several new industrial partners and organizations will now support the development of innovative protective solutions. An application for the stage 2 will be submitted in March.

Expected results and effects

The target group for the project has been refined and the care sector has been involved in the project to a larger extend to ensure that the developed solution will be compatible with their daily work. Two main product categories have been identified for further development (hip protective pants and airbags) and synergistic effects with impact absorbing floors will be considered. Finally, the need for a strong body of evidence to confirm the efficiency of the solutions was raised, which will be included in the second stage.

Planned approach and implementation

Overall the project has been successful. The project was initially built around three pillars (acceptance, technical development and business models), which still are relevant and will be maintained for the continuation of the work. The project set up was slightly altered as a workshop was delayed and individual partners meetings were instead conducted during the first half of the project. The interest for the project is strong; however, it has been difficult to engage regions and municipalities as the project as not generated a new product yet.