---
title: "Floor in motion"
description: "Floor in motion (Tarkett, 2016/17): Fall-detecting floors send live alerts to a tablet on the caretaker's cart"
url: "https://www.sugar-network.org/en/projects/floor-in-motion-2016-17/"
lang: "en"
---

# Floor in motion

**Fall-detecting floors send live alerts to a tablet on the caretaker's cart**

_Enhancing the Use of Internet-Connected Flooring for Use in Elderly Care Homes._

- **Corporate partner:** [Tarkett](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/partners/tarkett/) (https://www.tarkett.com/)
- **Cohort:** [2016/17](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/projects/cohort/2016-17/)
- **Theme:** [Health & care](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/projects/themes/health-care/)
- **Type:** Digital service
- **Key fact:** 2 night staff for 70 residents
- **Universities:** [d.school Paris · École des Ponts](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/universities/dschool-paris/), [Kyoto Institute of Technology](https://www.sugar-network.org/en/network/universities/kyoto-it/)
- **Team:** 7 master students

## Challenge

Tarkett's Floor in Motion panels detect falls and movement. The brief: bring this flooring to nursing homes, where older residents recover worse from falls and staff cannot watch everyone.

## What the team learned

Caretakers look after 15 residents by day and more than 30 at night. With two staff for 70 residents at night, the Alzheimer unit goes unwatched whenever both are busy elsewhere.

## What they built

Floor panels report falls, exits and bedroom and bathroom activity. Caretakers see a live feed on a tablet fixed to their cart, nurses and doctors get morning reports, and a web interface offers statistics and tailored alerts. A pilot ran in a nursing home.

> At our facility, each caretaker needs to care for 15 residents during the day, and more than 30 at night.
>
> – Caretaker, nursing home (needfinding interview)

## Full project text

The Floor in Motion system detects falls and other activity in a room through specialized floor panels, for which a system was developed to support the medical staff in nursing homes. They can react much faster to incidents of the elderly by receiving updates on a tablet attached to a cart they work with during their shift.

### Challenge

The student team was challenged to integrate the Floor in Motion into places that need it the most: hospitals and nursing homes.  
Tarkett decided that the elderly and those who take care of them would benefit most from their motion sensor flooring. As people age and their health declines, so too does their ability to recover from falls (no matter their cause). With an alert to any falls, medical staff and caretakers have the ability to react in a more timely manner to prevent worse injury-or even death-to the elderly.

### Solution

The team came up with a way to use tablets on mobile caretaker’s carts connected to the Floor in Motion system to help the monitoring of patients.  They set up a pilot usage in a nursing home to help caretakers monitor residents during the night to help them be more aware of activity and the risk of falls.  This prototype of the product used Floor in Motion floor panels in the rooms and a tablet secured to a cart to allow caretakers to stay in motion while still being able to monitor the system.

### Impact

The Floor in Motion and the enhancements added to it by the student design team work together to create a safer and more comfortable home environment for the elderly.

## Who built it.

- Céline Brunel (d.school Paris · École des Ponts)
- Gabrielle Sergent (d.school Paris · École des Ponts)
- Romain Delenda (d.school Paris · École des Ponts)
- William Wattequant (d.school Paris · École des Ponts)
- Joey Ho Nihei (Kyoto Institute of Technology)
- Yuki Takeda (Kyoto Institute of Technology)
- Ryonosuke Ono (Kyoto Institute of Technology)

## Video

- Tarkett - Floor in Motion ENG: https://vimeo.com/116848765

## Sources

Summarised by the SUGAR editorial team from the team’s project page and SUGAR Expo booklet.

Open the 2016/17 booklet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TXg5U1NWDb_LJz7j9X2CHIyjHksh0QIk/view?usp=sharing