Graduate student Erez Lieberman displays the “iShoe” insole he developed, which contains sensors that can detect a wearer’s balance — or lack thereof.

AP / Steven Senne

As a NASA intern studying astronaut balance problems, Erez Lieberman had an extra motive: nearly a decade earlier his grandmother had broken her hip in a fall and died soon after.

Now the 28-year-old graduate student wants to use technology he developed for returning space travelers to spare other elderly people a similar fate.

His invention is the “iShoe,” an insole stuffed with sensors that can transmit information on a person’s balance, providing an early warning system before falls.

The iShoe contains pressure sensors, a built-in memory and a transmitter that can send data using Bluetooth technology to a device like a laptop or cell phone. Eventually, that data will be transmitted online and return a balance assessment, Lieberman said.

Future versions might stimulate feet to prevent a tumble or sound an alarm when the wearer goes down.

“There are a hundred-something astronauts, but the people who really need (the technology) the most are the millions of seniors and aging people in the United States and abroad,” Lieberman said. “There are really no good diagnostics for poor balance.”

The needs of an aging population have researchers and companies scrambling for solutions.

The AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is researching ways to keep older drivers safe and high-tech clothes that monitor chronic health conditions like osteoporosis.

A Virginia Tech engineering team has designed pants containing small electronics that monitor movement and transmit data. The researchers found an unstable walking gait can indicate a person has a high risk of falling.

Lieberman, who studies in a joint Harvard-MIT health-science and technology program, spent his time at NASA last summer working on the balance problems suffered by returning astronauts, who are thrown off-kilter by extended stays in a weightless environment.

NASA tests them in a box the size of an old phone booth that has shifting surfaces and walls.

All standing people regularly shift their weight to maintain balance, changing the pressure on their feet, Lieberman said. People with poor stability shift more often, but may not be aware of it.

“The way that a person distributes pressure on their feet is different when they’re balancing well versus when they’re balancing poorly,” he said.

The iShoe technology can detect patterns of pressure associated with these problems, Lieberman said.

He and his team have applied for a patent to be held by MIT, Harvard and NASA.

Lieberman, a Hertz Fellow who also receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, started a company to bring the iShoe to the public.

While the company won a $50,000 grant in April to help with start-up costs, it has been run on a “shoestring budget” and is now looking for venture capital backing, Lieberman said.

With enough support, iShoe insoles could be commercially available within 18 to 24 months, with a pair likely costing between $100 and $300, he said. Potential customers include elderly consumers, doctors and physical therapists.

For now, the insole is a work in progress. A trial with elderly users is months away.

On the Web: www.ishoeinsole.com.

One doctor’s prescription

 A recent large-scale study shows that a combination of adjusting treatment, assessing risk and educating patients can substantially reduce serious falls among the elderly.

 The study, by Dr. Mary E. Tinetti and colleagues at the Yale School of Medicine, compared two similar regions of Connecticut over four years. The researchers asked clinicians to assess their patients’ risk of falls and to consider medication reduction and other prevention measures like strength training, vision adjustment and blood-pressure treatment. The rate of serious falls by the elderly in that region was 11 percent less than that in the region that followed normal care.

 That lower rate of falls translated to 1,800 fewer emergency visits by the elderly, the researchers said, saving more than $21 million in health-care costs. Part of a doctor’s standard practice, Tinetti said, should be “asking about whether the person has fallen in the last few months and whether he or she experiences difficulty or unsteadiness while moving around; and if so, checking blood pressure lying and standing; reviewing medications and reducing the number and dose; and checking the person walking..”

— The New York Times

•One in three people age 65 and older fall each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

•There are more than 300,000 hip fractures each year, nearly all of them caused by falls and most occurring in older women, the CDC said. About 1 in 5 people with broken hips die within a year of the injury.

•With the population rapidly growing gray, the annual number of broken hips could reach 650,000 by 2050, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons says.