- Author
-
Bruck, D.
|
Thomas, I.
|
Kritikos, A.
- Title
- Reducing Fire Deaths in Older Adults: Optimizing the Smoke Alarm Signal. Research Project. Investigation of Auditory Arousal With Different Alarm Signals in Sleeping Older Adults.
- Coporate
- Victoria Univ., Australia
- Keywords
-
adults
|
elderly persons
|
smoke detectors
|
death
|
signals
|
sleep
|
fire alarm systems
|
risk assessment
|
wakefulness
|
fire safety
|
human behavior
|
risks
|
residential buildings
|
housing
|
tests
|
maintenance
- Identifiers
- signal significance and characteristics; awakenings with various alarm signals; sleep inertia; responsiveness to signals; spectral analyses of four signals tested; breakdown of the age and sex of subgroups; hearing criteria and comparison with norms
- Abstract
- Over the last decade research on which emergency signal will best awaken sleeping individuals has led to a recognition that more work is needed on the audibility of existing smoke alarms and the comparative waking effectiveness of alternative signals. This research focuses on these issues in a population known to have an elevated risk of dying in a fire , adults aged over 65 years. It investigates responsiveness to different signals in sleeping older adults as well as measuring performance upon awakening (sleep inertia). This comparison of arousal thresholds required a tightly controlled experimental design , with selection criteria and methodological requirements that increase the validity of such comparisons using a manageable sample size , but do not allow direct extrapolations to the field in terms of expected arousal thresholds in a real emergency or percentages of the population that may awaken to certain signals. These population and methodological factors probably result in the research to date underestimating the proportion of people who will not wake up to an alarm. Aims and the relevant findings are set out below, followed by a discussion of the key conclusions and recommendations.