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Completed

NCT Number: NCT05245097

Mitigation of Major Hip Injury Due to Fall With a Smart Belt

Multi-center, comparative, non-significant risk adaptive study with retrospective controls.

After providing informed consent and being screened for eligibility, intervention subjects will be prescribed and provided an appropriately sized Tango Belt. The subject must demonstrate a minimum of 64% adherence to the use of the Tango Belt within 14 days of initiation to fully enroll in the study. Upon demonstration of at least minimum adherence, the subject will be provided the Tango Belt to wear continuously for at least 6 months, except during bathing, device charging, and as deemed by clinical staff.

The study will investigate the safety and effectiveness of the Tango Belt with the primary and secondary endpoints being taken every 3 months and at the end of the study run time from the electronic medical record. Additionally, ancillary endpoints on adverse events and device performance will be gathered.

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Key information

Age range

65 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Revere Court of Sacramento, Sacramento, California, United States

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About this study

This is a multi-center, comparative, adaptive, non-significant risk clinical trial conducted in the United States to assess the safety and efficacy of the Tango Belt within senior care settings. Effectiveness of the Tango Belt will be determined by analysis of evidence for the Tango Belt as an adjunctive intervention to the standard-of-care (SOC) to mitigate major hip injuries from falls in an older adult population at-risk for fall injury as the primary endpoint. Performance of the Tango Belt to mitigate fall injuries that result in hip fracture, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations will be secondary endpoints. The performance of the device is determined by the comparison of the proportion of fall-related major hip injuries in the intervention group as compared to the proportion of fall-related major hip injuries in a retrospective control group utilizing only SOC. SOC utilization will be verified for each clinical site enrolled. An adaptive trial design will be utilized to allow an initial efficacy target to be evaluated at 6 months; if the initial target is not met, then a second cohort of sites and subjects will be enrolled for an additional 6 months to allow a lower efficacy target to be evaluated.

Safety of the device will be determined by analysis of adverse events as an ancillary endpoint.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Age 65 years or older;
  • Have experienced a fall-related fracture after age 50 -OR- Have experienced one or more falls in the 12-months prior to consent and have a diagnosis of osteoporosis, osteopenia, or prescribed osteoporosis medication.
  • Independently or with staff or caregiver assistance, able to transfer between surfaces (e.g., to or from a bed, chair, wheelchair, toilet, standing position) or walk or move between locations (use of an assistive device such as a walker is acceptable);
  • Have a waist circumference between 29 - 50 inches (63.5 - 127 cm);
  • Able to comply with required study procedures and follow-up schedule as determined by the Study Investigator;
  • Are under the care of the Investigational organization;
  • Provides consent or their legally authorized representative provides consent on subject's behalf

Exclusion criteria

  • Age 64 years or less;
  • Participation in a different clinical investigation that can conflict with this clinical study as determined by the Study Investigator and approved by the Sponsor;
  • Total dependence on staff or caregiver assistance to be able to transfer between surfaces (e.g., to or from a bed, chair, wheelchair, toilet, standing position) and walk and move between locations;
  • Use of other devices or interventions outside of SOC (Standard of care) for fall risk management during study participation without Sponsor approval;
  • Unable to comply with required study procedures and follow-up schedule as determined by the Study Investigator;
  • Does not provide consent, or legally authorized representative does not provide consent

Treatment and study plan

Tango Belt

Device

The Tango Belt is a patient-contacting electronic device made out of medical grade plastics and biocompatible fabrics worn around the waist. The Tango Belt contains a fall-in-progress detection algorithm which can detect a serious hip-impacting fall-in-progress using built-in sensors and deploy an automotive-grade cold-gas airbag to protect the hips from ground impact forces. When connected to Wi-Fi, the Tango Belt can send automated fall and impact alerts to caregivers and Healthcare Providers (HCPs) while recording motion and event data, which can then be analyzed for usage-based metrics viewable via a companion mobile app and/or desktop app. Alerts are sent in the form of short message service (SMS) texts and emails to alert recipients designated in the mobile or desktop Companion App. The Tango Belt can also detect non-serious hip-impacting or non-hip impacting falls in which the wearer may have incurred a minor injury (i.e., not a major hip injury) and/or may be unable to get up.

Standard of Care (SOC)

Other

The standard of care (SOC) in the US for managing the fall risk of geriatric patients is the CDC's Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries (STEADI) initiative, which implements the America and British Geriatric Societies'' Clinical Practice Guidelines for fall risk management. The STEADI algorithm consists of tools and resources for healthcare providers for fall risk screening, assessment, and interventioniv,v. Screening and assessment includes identifying fall history and modifiable factors related to fall and fall injury risk (e.g. fear of falling, gait, strength, balance, medications, comorbidities, etc.); then interventions to reduce the fall and fall injury risk are applied based upon assessment findings, and can include physical therapy, medication adjustments, patient education, bed and chair alarms, bed rails, etc.

Primary outcomes

  1. Major Hip Injuries Due to Serious Hip-impacting Fall

    Time frame: 6 months

    The percent of subjects in the ITT population with major hip injuries due to serious hip-impacting falls.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Number of Hip Fractures Related to Fall

    Time frame: 6 months

    The number of subjects in the ITT group with hip fractures related to a fall event.

  2. Number of Emergency Department Visits Related to Fall

    Time frame: 6 months

    The number of subjects in the ITT group with emergency department visits related to fall.

  3. Number of Hospitalizations Due to Fall

    Time frame: 6 months

    The number of subjects in the ITT group admitted to a hospital due to fall.

Other outcomes

  1. Number and Severity of Adverse Events

    Time frame: 6 months

    An Adverse Event is any untoward medical occurrences in a patient or subject receiving an investigational medical device and does not necessarily have to have a causal relationship with the device under investigation. An AE can therefore be any unfavorable and unintended sign (including abnormal laboratory finding), symptom, or disease temporally associated with the use of a medical device whether or not considered related to the medical device. Any fall event is considered an AE for this study. A Severe Adverse Event is any AE that results in death, is life-threatening, requires in-patient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization or results in persistent or significant disability/ incapacity.

  2. Number of Major Injuries Due to Fall

    Time frame: 6 months

    The number of major injuries that were due to a fall.

  3. Rate of Fall Occurence

    Time frame: 6 months

    The fall rate for the intervention and the control group

  4. Device Wear Adherence

    Time frame: 90 days and 180 days

    Adherence to wearing of the study device in days/month

  5. Device Wear Compliance

    Time frame: 6 months

    Compliance to wearing of the study device in hours/day average

  6. Accuracy of Device Fall Discrimination

    Time frame: 6 months

    Rate of airbag deployments that occurred while an intervention subject was not experiencing a serious hip-impacting fall.

  7. Accuracy of Study Device Airbag Deployment

    Time frame: 6 months

    Accuracy of the study device airbag deployment as designed is demonstrated in the number of hip fractures that occurred by intervention subjects wearing the device during serious hip-impacting falls.

  8. Balance Confidence Score Changes

    Time frame: 6 months

    Short version of the Falls Efficacy Scale International (where applicable for those deemed able to take the questionnaire (BIMS of 13-15)) to offer level of balance confidence as defined by the scale (range from 7 (no concern about falling) to 28 (severe concern about falling).

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

ActiveProtective Technologies, Inc

Industry

Collaborators

  • Avania

Registry information

Official study title

Mitigation of Major Hip Injury Due to Fall in an At-Risk, Older Adult Population With a Wearable Smart Belt

Important dates

Study start
2022
Primary completion
2023
Study completion
2023
First posted
Feb 17, 2022
Registry last updated
Jun 13, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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