Wireless health monitoring system

A personal alert system for monitoring a person, comprising:

• a monitoring unit configured for wearing by a person and having at least one acceleration sensor disposed thereon for generating sensor data indicative of the magnitude and direction of movement of at least one body part of the person;
• a communications device associated with said at least one acceleration sensor and configured for wearing by the person, said communications device capable of sending a signal to a remote location;
• a processing device, capable of receiving said sensor data, for determining when a spike pulse has been received that indicates the possibility a fall has occurred and then evaluates the severity of the fall based on the spike pulse magnitude;
• and
• a remote unit for communicating with the communications device and generating an alarm when said processing device causes said alert state.

A method of monitoring physical activity of a person, comprising:

• measuring relative movement of the person with a multi-dimensional accelerometer;
• generating signals representing the measured movement;
• transmitting the signals to a base unit;
• processing the signals into data;
• and
• comparing the data until a spike pulse is received from the multi-dimensional accelerometer to indicate the possibility that a fall has occurred and then the severity of the fall is determined based on spike pulse magnitude.