If a facility offers life alert type service inclusive of your fee, take it.
At the ccrc so works at, everyone is issued one of these. It goes to the front desk that then alerts a wellness worker and maintenance. Maintenance stops the elevator and if the caregiver requests, will try to get the senior upright if that’s required. If unsuccessful, they will get paramedics.
Whereas if a senior calls 911 themselves, no one knows what entrance the Ambo and fire truck have even arrived. Sometimes they come to separate ones. The front desk person has to get out of outside parties what unit this is and then start dispatching people.
Join Nextdoor.com and ask your actual neighbors and non-anonymous people in your community what they recommend. If it's anything like the ND.com where I live, you'll get a ton of very good advice.
BRCrumpton: "Life Alert" is indeed a good monitoring system. However, it is only as good as the user, i.e. my late mother possessed Life Alert, including the pendant, BUT she mistakenly removed it while showering/bathing even though she was told NOT to many times over. Her mindset was "I don't want it to get wet." I responded that she was told it was imperative to wear IN THE SHOWER, but I never could get it through to her mindset. My mother did not have dementia.
I use Life Alert and find them very responsive. They advised using the pendant on a lanyard rather than the bracelet because if, for example, you had a stroke and the opposite side was paralyzed it would not be possible to press the button on a bracelet.
whats wrong with life alert? Of course I think all these services are a rip off. Most people have the perfect device already the cell phone. You can put in on a lanyard and put a short cut button that calls a preprogrammed number. Do an app and it can call a series of numbers until an answer and send txt messages.
Another good experience with Bay Medical. During ordering process dad got to choose between the necklace pendant or the wrist band style device as well as 3 help buttons that easily attached with sticky backed tab to your location of choice. They also provide emergency info paperwork that when filled out were put in a clear sleeve and hung on the fridge where it could be seen immediately on entering house. An outside lockbox where an extra key was stored was also provided. I opened the account in my name, making it very easy to close the account when he moved to a retirement facility. The main call box is about the size of a phone answering machine and needs to be placed where it can be connected to a phone line. Once activated by pressing a call button it announces "calling for help" repeatedly. Dad is quite hard of hearing and we could not make the volume high enough to suit him. It did work when a call button was accidentally activated by a mouse running over the top of a button dad had on a table top in his garage. He awoke to 5 firemen and several neighbors in his bedroom lol. That was his wake up call to start looking for another living situation where others were closer since his hearing loss made it unsafe to be alone.
We have mobile help I believe it is called. It has a button on it that my mom can push and talk to someone if anything happens. I liked this one because the necklace didn't require another box in the house, it has gps and is under $400 a year.
We use Medical Guardian for my parents. We do not have the fall alert feature because since they live together, one will push the button for the other.
No complaints from us. Medical Guardian has been extremely responsive. My sisters who live near to my parents have been notified immediately when my mother fell on several occasions.
Sometimes though my mother has managed to push the button without intending to. We adjusted the necklace so that she can’t lean on it anymore.
I just got my Mom the Medical Guardian Mini. It's their newest mobile device so she can use it anywhere. I've explained to her that she can use it in any emergency, not just medical. They will call police and fire departments also. So far no complaints!
Monitors are “Good Servants” but can be VERY POOR MASTERS.
Unless the “fall notification feature” is included, there are many reasons why the elderly will not benefit.
My LO wouldn’t (WOULD NOT) “push the button”- “don’t want to bother anyone, don’t want the noise of sirens to let the neighbors know, too expensive, can’t charge the rechargeable batteries, too expensive, device doesn’t look nice when I go out…….”
Also, as my mom's CHF became more advanced and she became more confused, she would often "fiddle" with her necklace, inadvertently pressing the pendants button and setting off the monitor...usually in the middle of the night. She wouldn't even realize she was doing it, she would be in her own little world and would not react/respond to the call box, so I would get the call that she had activated the alert and wasn't responding.
Also, she took a fall about a week before she passed away, and the pendant ended up underneath her. She had no idea where it was and would have had no way of getting to it HAD she known where it was. I ended up hearing her yell for help.
It came to be a useful tool to assist me in caregiving for her, but it was in no way a substitute for someone physically being with her as her illness progressed. In the end, I had to purchase a baby monitor to be able to keep an ear on things with her, because she usually didn't remember she was wearing the pendant.
We used Bay Medical Alert that was ranked in the Top 10 medical alert systems by AARP for my mom. They were great! You must have a landline phone and they had an option of a bracelet or a necklace that the user could chose to wear. The peace of mind it provided was comforting. My mom did have to use it a few times when she was experiencing illness. If she pushed the button the alert was activated and someone would come in the speaker and ask if help was needed. If there was no response within a certain amount of time they would alert 911 or if my mom responded she needed help they would alert 911. They were super responsive and they also notify the emergency contact people listed in the profile if the alert was activated. They have an app that is user friendly as well. The price was reasonable and again the comfort of knowing there was assistance available at a touch of a button, that the user wore on a bracelet, was worth it. Here’s the link to Bay Medical
As Geaton has pointed out the user has to 100% buy in to the idea because none of them will work if they won't wear the pendant or refuse to push the button because "they don't want to be a bother".
I just want to mention that the Fall Detection monitor might be an important feature to consider. Someone recently told me their MIL (lives alone) fell in her garage hit head and knocked out. The fall detection monitor saved her as she would have been unable to hit an Alert button. Help arrived in a very short time to find her unconscious.
I'm trying to get my elderly uncle to consider this upgraded feature after suffering a recent dizzy spell and almost fell in the bathroom. If he had been unable to hit the Alert button I would not have known he needed help. He ended up going to ER for scans, evaluation and IVs for dehydration issues.
Some of the major things to consider to get you started: -do you prefer monitoring at a 24/7 call centre, or are you satisfied to just have a system that is essentially an auto dialer -are you OK to pay a monthly fee or would you rather pay upfront to own your unit - are you interested in all the bells and whistles some services provide such as fall detection or daily check ins -do you want/need a unit that can be used outside the home - such as when walking for exercise, shopping, on vacation.
At the ccrc so works at, everyone is issued one of these. It goes to the front desk that then alerts a wellness worker and maintenance. Maintenance stops the elevator and if the caregiver requests, will try to get the senior upright if that’s required. If unsuccessful, they will get paramedics.
Whereas if a senior calls 911 themselves, no one knows what entrance the Ambo and fire truck have even arrived. Sometimes they come to separate ones. The front desk person has to get out of outside parties what unit this is and then start dispatching people.
I told her she couldn’t afford not to have one
get fall notification….
No complaints from us. Medical Guardian has been extremely responsive. My sisters who live near to my parents have been notified immediately when my mother fell on several occasions.
Sometimes though my mother has managed to push the button without intending to. We adjusted the necklace so that she can’t lean on it anymore.
I've explained to her that she can use it in any emergency, not just medical. They will call police and fire departments also.
So far no complaints!
Unless the “fall notification feature” is included, there are many reasons why the elderly will not benefit.
My LO wouldn’t (WOULD NOT) “push the button”- “don’t want to bother anyone, don’t want the noise of sirens to let the neighbors know, too expensive, can’t charge the rechargeable batteries, too expensive, device doesn’t look nice when I go out…….”
Also, as my mom's CHF became more advanced and she became more confused, she would often "fiddle" with her necklace, inadvertently pressing the pendants button and setting off the monitor...usually in the middle of the night. She wouldn't even realize she was doing it, she would be in her own little world and would not react/respond to the call box, so I would get the call that she had activated the alert and wasn't responding.
Also, she took a fall about a week before she passed away, and the pendant ended up underneath her. She had no idea where it was and would have had no way of getting to it HAD she known where it was. I ended up hearing her yell for help.
It came to be a useful tool to assist me in caregiving for her, but it was in no way a substitute for someone physically being with her as her illness progressed. In the end, I had to purchase a baby monitor to be able to keep an ear on things with her, because she usually didn't remember she was wearing the pendant.
https://www.bayalarmmedical.com/
Will she wear the monitor and not take it off?
I'm trying to get my elderly uncle to consider this upgraded feature after suffering a recent dizzy spell and almost fell in the bathroom. If he had been unable to hit the Alert button I would not have known he needed help. He ended up going to ER for scans, evaluation and IVs for dehydration issues.
-do you prefer monitoring at a 24/7 call centre, or are you satisfied to just have a system that is essentially an auto dialer
-are you OK to pay a monthly fee or would you rather pay upfront to own your unit
- are you interested in all the bells and whistles some services provide such as fall detection or daily check ins
-do you want/need a unit that can be used outside the home - such as when walking for exercise, shopping, on vacation.