Does anybody have any experience with these? Trying to decide on one for my mom as she recently had a stroke. She's in rehab now and recovering well. She laid in the floor unable to reach her phone or get up for an unknown amount of time until my aunt found her.

The latest Apple Watches have a sensor that detects if someone has fallen (they have a built-in accelerometer), doesn’t get up, and will call 911–at least that’s my understanding. That’s what I would get, don’t know how it compares in cost to the Life Alert.

quote:

FALL DETECTION TECHNOLOGY
Many people ask, “how does fall detection work?” The accelerometer and gyroscope is the technology responsible for automatic fall detection in medical alert device pendants. These sensors detect your everyday activity and can sense a falling motion. It is also built into many other devices you may own such as your smartphone. An accelerometer measures the change in your velocity or speed divided by time. Think about when you change the position of your smartphone and the orientation of your screen changes with it. That is the accelerometer technology at work! According to LiveScience, a gyroscope is a device that uses the Earth’s gravity to help determine orientation. Both of these applications working together can work effectively to detect falls in seniors.
Although this technology has been built into smartphones for a while, the difference is the new Apple Watch claims to have created custom algorithms to more accurately sense when a fall has taken place. One of the criticisms of automatic fall detection in the past has been that it is not always accurate in detecting falls with one recent study showing it detected 12 out of 15 actual falls.
With this new Apple Watch feature, if it senses the user has been immobilized, it will give you an option to choose if you are ok or if you want to call emergency services. If there is no activity for more than 60 seconds, it will automatically call for help from emergency services and send your emergency contacts your location. Getting help fast in these emergency situations is often times key for potentially saving someone’s life.

Link

My father had several strokes late in his life. After the second stroke, he was still able to live independently in the home he had built. Of course, with a weak right arm and leg, life alone was not without some real challenges.

I went to visit him one weekend and he was proud to show off the new LifeAlert system for which he had signed a contract with a door to door salesman. I was so angry that he signed a contract in what appeared to be an impulse purchase, partly because doing so was so out of character for him in his younger days. I read the contract and found both the agreement language and the cost appeared reasonable, so I told him to give it a try and if it didn't work well, I would help him to try and break the agreement and get his money back.

For a couple years, he took some comfort in the fact that LifeAlert would, from time to time, contact him over the system to make sure that everything was working and that he was doing well. A couple times, they called to make certain that he was ok since the motion sensor in his TV room (where the master unit was located) had not indicated any activity for a couple of days.

About two years later, one night I received a call from the Township Fire Chief and he was checking with me to see if I had any questions about the incident that day at my father's home. I had not. Apparently, my father went into his kitchen to make his lunch and put a pot of soup on the electric stove. When he went to his refrigerator, he fell on the floor against the refrigerator door and with his strong arm pinned beneath him. He was unable to activate the LifeAlert call button that he wore on a neck lanyard. The soup boiled off and the aluminum pan melted. It was hot enough to melt the top of the stove. The Fire Chief received an emergency call from LifeAlert when the system alarm was activated by a smoke detector in a nearby room. Since the master unit was not in the kitchen and the TV was too loud, they couldn't talk over the speaker to my father and dispatched an emergency response. The Chief said when they arrived, they could hear the smoke detectors in alarm and since they got no response, they broke in the front door and found only 1-foot of clear air space at the floor where my father was lying. They ventilated the house and checked for any smoldering fire. My father refused any further medical treatment and remained in his home.

My father was a WWII veteran and I never knew him to show any fear. However, after this close call, he asked my sister and I to begin looking seriously into a retirement living facility for him. He said that that afternoon on the floor, he thought he would never be able to speak with us again and he decided, it was time to seek a home with a different kind of independence rather than living alone.

I remember how the Fire Chief ended our conversation that night on the phone. He said, "I don't know what you are paying for that monitoring system, but if your father didn't have it, we would be having a whole different conversation with you this evening."

The only advice that I can add for someone considering such a system, is to carefully consider all the components of the system you may need to build out the system to reasonably cover the daily activities planned in the home by the wearer. You will likely not be able to cover all possible risks, but you should do your best to anticipate where injuries or incapacitation might likely occur.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
The latest Apple Watches have a sensor that detects if someone has fallen (they have a built-in accelerometer), doesn’t get up, and will call 911–at least that’s my understanding. That’s what I would get, don’t know how it compares in cost to the Life Alert.

The Apple watch does do that. One of the women in my weekly shooting group was explaining that last Thursday at coffee after shooting. She said it sometimes falses and thinks she's fallen when she does something sudden with her arm.

We are out in the sticks.

Four elderly people tried some.

Two got returned when it took more than five minutes for a response.

Another got returned because it did not work during a power outage.

The 4th got returned when they found out that the call was answered by a switch board instead of a 911 call center.

Gave them explain all the details , before you purchase.

Ask if there is a per incident charge.

And test them monthly .

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bendable,

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:

The latest Apple Watches have a sensor that detects if someone has fallen (they have a built-in accelerometer), doesn’t get up, and will call 911–at least that’s my understanding. That’s what I would get, don’t know how it compares in cost to the Life Alert.

About a year ago, I tripped and fell in my driveway. No great harm, although my shoulder was sore for a couple weeks, but my wife and I started to think seriously about this. I have had balance problems ever since I was hit with Guillain Barré Syndrome a few years ago (we are doing a lot of balance exercises at physical therapy, but that's another story).

We looked into one of the better known alert systems. Costly! The lowest cost monitoring plan was $29.95 / month, that was for monitoring only in the home, and required a landline which we do not have, so that would be another forty bucks / month, total cost almost a thousand / year.

I definitely am not confined to the house, so a monitoring plan that would be good outside of the home, using GPS to send location, would be well over a thousand / year.

Then, we looked at Apple watch. Series 4 and later watches have the fall detection feature at no extra cost. When a fall is detected, there is a short time period (I don't remember whether it's 30 seconds or 60 seconds, I think it's 30), that allows you to declare a "false alarm," after which the watch calls 911, and also notifies anybody (everybody) you have designated as an emergency contact in your directory. No "plan" cost for any of this, it's just part of the set of watch features.

It did not take a lot of thinking; my wife gave me a Series 5 watch, might have been birthday, or our anniversary.

It has not been tested with a fall; however, the sensor was activated when I bumped my arm, rather hard, into a wall. The watch indicated that it had detected a fall and I had 30 seconds (maybe it was 60?) to abort the emergency notification feature, which of course I did. So, I am satisfied that I do have a reasonable amount of emergency protection, as well as the normal watch functions, including notification of incoming text and email messages, all at a much lower cost than the dedicated alert system would have been.

The VA gave me one of the devices and I use it when I am not with my wife (like when she's gone out of town or something similar). It is comforting to know I can summon assistance if I fall (and I do take a dive from time to time), but another point to consider is if the fall knocks you out or injures you really badly, you may not be able to push the button to summon help.

I kinda like the idea of the smart watch that calls for help. Might look into that.

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter1:

The VA gave me one of the devices and I use it when I am not with my wife

Do you have to pay for a service plan?

That was the big deal killer for me, and the reason we decided to go with the Apple watch.

Question:
The Apple Watch claims to sense when you are "immobile". So how can it tell the difference between you being asleep or immobile due fall, injury, etc?

I know nothing about "immoble."

Mine was activated by an impact.

I bumped my arm into a doorway, pretty hard. The watch assumed that I fell.

V-Tail:

I don't pay anything for the service thru the VA.

Bob

My flip phone has an alert button. I accidentally pressed it one time and got an immediate answer. It does not have "fall" detection. My BFF has strongly suggested I upgrade my alert system.

flashguy

I guess it depends on the level of service and monitoring required. An iPhone works for me, we have use Find My Phone so my wife can track my location if we are riding bikes or walking separately. That works for us, for now. Times and conditions will change. Not long ago, my wife was recovering from an injury, and I was recovering from a stroke, so we would watch each other shower (not entirely unpleasant.) We do what we must.

My mom wanted one and we got her one that would work even when out in the yard and such - only problem is that you have to carry a base unit (like a phone), not just the necklace or bracelet for it to work. She hated carrying the base thing around (women's clothes rarely have decent pockets).

IF you want one that will work in and around the den or bedroom - good to go. They sell a base unit that plugs in and will connnect with the thing your mom will wear. But if she strays too far from the base, it won't connect and call.

My mom cancelled hers after a year since she wasn't willing to carry the base/phone around.