The best Fall Alert button?

I got a Bay Alarm Medical system for my mother a few years ago. It provides both a pendant and a wrist-type monitor for use when she's at home. I also got the GPS help button she can carry when she is away from home. And, I got a lock-box to hang on the outside door, to allow emergency personnel access to a house key, should she need assistance. The lock box has never been used, she's going to put a key in it "later", and I don't think she uses any of the rest of it much at all, unless she knows I'm coming to her house.

The Bay people said they get lots and lots of false alarms with the fall-alert type monitor, so I chose not to get that one. She won't test her system monthly, as the company suggests, so I do that every time I'm there. They answer promptly, and it's loud enough to wake the dead, but if she doesn't respond, they will call for emergency assistance per our instructions.

I had good luck with Phillips but I think you can get the button which only goes off when pressed OR you can get one which also has falls detection. Make sure you request falls detection. My LO had a serious enough fall with likely loss of consciousness that she was unable to ever return home again. The alert worked perfectly - as advertised. As far as your other alert not going off when it slid to the floor in the night, you should ask philips about that scenario because I know I had a conversation about accidentally triggering the falls detection when it wasn't really a fall and I think there is some kind of built in safeguard for that.

If you have the financing, I’d look at an Apple iWatch, and in fact if the time comes and the need arises, I’ll be doing that myself.

The best fall alert is one that your LO will WEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doesn't matter how fancy or amazing the thing is, if they won't put it on, then it's pointless. I can't count how many times my MIL's has gone off (she's fallen, or whacked it on something, or dropped it) but never ONCE was it a true emergency.

She also won't use her walker, She slides a kitchen chair around the house. She thinks using a walker makes her look old. Well, shoving a heavy wooden chair around makes her look demented. And she will hit the back of the chair with the fall pendant. The alarm DOES go off, but she cannot hear it.

The firemen breaking her plate glass windows to get to her? THAT she can hear.

After about 4 'no calls' the fire dept told her they would start charging her for calls that were not 'legit'. To my knowledge, it's been better, but not by much.

thanks, CountryMouse. I will definitely check out your testing tips.

PS: lately (yesterday/today/last few days), every time I go to this forum it is asking me to log in with pw, online name, etc. It's a pain and will eventually make me skip this forum, as it takes too long to do this -- and the forum has lots of good advice. Is this happening to anyone else? I'm recent here (joined a few months ago), and it didn't happen before. Do I contact the site adminis to see what's going on? Thanks.

I don't know how good your falls alarm is, but you can find out by pressing it.

Pick a sensible time of day, such as late morning, when the call handlers shouldn't be too busy, and test it. When they answer, you explain that you're running a check, thank them for their response (or, though I hope not, say "what the heck kept you??!!" depending on how long it took), and they'll thank you in turn and wish you a good day.

Our clients' lifelines (the terms vary) are supposed to be checked "regularly" in this way but nobody seems to have said what constitutes regularly :) I run through the routine with them if their alarms are: a) new to them; b) misbehaving in some way; c) just rescued from the back of the kitchen drawer after heaven knows how long in purdah; or d) if the client is just generally worried.

Doing this "rehearsal" is also a good way to check that you can hear the responder and the responder can hear you. So don't stand next to the control box, make it authentic by being in the kitchen or similar.

I'm sorry to hear that you came to fall. Did your alarm help in that situation?