Boosted by health consequences and the cost of falls in the elderly, this work develops and tests a novel algorithm and methodology to detect human impacts that will act as triggers of a two-layer fall monitor. The two main requirements demanded by socio-healthcare providers--unobtrusiveness and reliability--defined the objectives of the research. We have demonstrated that a very agile, adaptive, and energy-based anisotropic algorithm can provide 100% sensitivity and 78% specificity, in the task of detecting impacts under demanding laboratory conditions. The algorithm works together with an unsupervised real-time learning technique that addresses the adaptive capability, and this is also presented. The work demonstrates the robustness and reliability of our new algorithm, which will be the basis of a smart falling monitor. This is shown in this work to underline the relevance of the results.