Personal Alarms in case of falls at home

[defnotadomesticgoddess]

Can anyone recommend a good personal alarm that I could get for my dad to use at his home. He's at risk of falls and I'm worried if he falls he won't be able to get to the phone to get help.

My parents have one through AgeUK, and the service has always been great

Contact your local council. Each area will have a telecare provider which provides and monitors those sorts of alarms. There are list of different types and lots of other equipment which can be really helpful. In our area it costs between 3 and 5 a week (or did about 7 years ago).

Contact your local council before going down the private company route. My mum had the local council come and fit one which was very good (necklace she pressed the button on and it rang emergency numbers etc). It was much cheaper through them than private companies (it wasn’t means tested either, she owned her own home etc).

Also has an ot done a home assessment for th8ngs like grab rails?

Our local falls team have been excellent.

We got Telecare through the hospital occupational therapist. You can also get a falls detector which alerts the responder if the person cant get to their alarm bell. We had falls mats by the bed and chair and a home falls risk assessment. We also put up a keysafe outside so the carers and emergency services ould gain access.

My mother has one through the local authority, I think it costs about £25 a month. It saw action last week when she passed out in the bathroom at 3am banging her head on the tiles. Thank goodness she hadn't taken the alarm off, she pressed the button and they called us out and ambulance.
Yes to key safe as well.

Have a look here. This company was previously Worcestershire Telecare but they cover all over so changed the name. A lot of LAs use them and they're very good.

My gran has the pendant and doro watch and she gets on great with them.

www.amica24.org/individuals/

We went through local council - very straightforward and the guy that came out to set everything up was wonderful with my Mum.

Mum and MIL both use(d) ones supplied by the council, they're good for this stuff.

An interesting alternative if you're made of money and have geeky grandparents is an Apple Watch (also needs an iPhone), which automatically detects falls and calls for help all by itself if it 'sees' one. Some great rescue stories from those.

The 'button on a pendant' type are no good if someone's fallen and is incapacitated, while the watch will likely be.

My FIL also had one through the council. It worked well when he fell and needed assistance.

GP can directly refer to local falls or community OT team . They will come to visit your dad at home. It’s always good to have home assessment done to identify and minimise the risk of falls. They will also be able to recommend aids/equipment or other modifications to the property to make it safe for your dad and he may also be able to join the local falls group too.

Might be worth considering supplementary alarms, eg to alert if there's a period of unexpected inactivity, to cover the possibility of the person falling and not being able to press the button. This sort of thing:
www.taskltd.com/movement-detector.html

It's theoretically possible to program something on the lines of "IF there's been no movement in the kitchen for 6 hours AND it's daytime not night time THEN phone someone" but whether anything provides this commercially is the question. Using this sort of technology in elder care is very much in its infancy.

Local authority, and get her assessed at the falls clinic and for grab rails and all the rest by an OT. My mother had this as a precondition for hospital discharge so suspect GP would be your best bet.

I spent a while on this and wasn't very convinced by the systems promoted by age UK and most councils and similar ones as they all seemed to work by having a base station which did the talking to the possibly fallen user via a loudspeaker. My MIL's flat has a number of rooms so she simply wouldn't be able to hear to talk to the call handler, which seemed to me to considerably reduce the utility and likely to cause false alarms. Also, I wanted to have fall sensing.

I opted for Suresafego (google, or go to the website personalarms.org). It has the loudspeaker on the actual pendant, has fall alert and also works away from the house eg if she falls over in the Sainsbury's car park as works on mobile signal. Monthly cost very comparable to the age UK ones although I think initial kit was slightly dearer. Also looks cool, which is fun. Charges on bedsore in a neat holder.

Pleased with it. Have had good responses to a couple of early false falling over alerts when she tripped

If your relative is tech savvy it’s worth considering Alexa.

Charges on bedsore

Lots of useful points, michael - thanks

We used Age UK before DM went into a nursing home. We never had any issues with it.

I would recommend it to anyone but ... the three month notice period when it was no longer required did not set comfortably with me. All the other utilities and people we contacted were very sensitive, so their response was even more striking.

Technically, it was all fine. And yet ...

My mum in law has one through our council. They provide a reliable service

Good luck getting them to wear it, my DM just leaves hers on the side 🙄🙄🙄

Not helpful to you I know... but the couple of times she's pressed the button accidentally, the people have been great... I think its PPP alarms?

We used 'Lifeline' for my DPs. We paid the bill (relatively little per quarter - £20 or so?). That was in Dorset, though, so not sure if they operate elsewhere in the UK. Have to say, didn't have any issues with them.