Medical Alert Systems Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have nearly fallen and thought, What if I had fallen? How would I have gotten up? How would I have gotten help? Many seniors face this very situation daily. According to learnnottofall.com, about one third of the elder population over the age of 65 falls each year and the risk of falls increases proportionately with age. At 80 years, over half of seniors fall annually. These numbers are alarming but these same statistics fall short of the actual number of falls because many falls go unreported. Many of us believe if we are just more careful next time, we won t fall again, right? No, 53% of older adults who were discharged from the hospital after a fall-related hip fracture will fall again within six (6) months. But the alarming statistics do not stop there. According to learnnottofall.com: Falls are the leading cause of death due to injury among the elderly. 87% of all fractures in the elderly are due to falls. Falls account for 25% of all hospital admissions, 40% of all nursing home admissions, 40% of those admitted do not return to independent living, and 25% die within a year. Many falls do not result in injuries, yet a large percentage of non-injured fallers (47%) cannot get up without assistance. For the elderly who fall and are unable to get up on their own, the period of time spent immobile often affects their health outcome. Muscle cell breakdown starts to occur within 30-60 minutes of compression due to falling. Dehydration, pressure sores, hypothermia, and pneumonia are other complications that may result. Getting help after an immobilizing fall improves the chance of survival by 80% and increases the likelihood of a return to independent living. Up to 40% of people who have a stroke have a serious fall within the next year. All of these statistics lend themselves to say, Statistics are nice, but what should I do to help protect myself? One way to help protect yourself should a fall occur is to have a medical alert system in your home. The following was developed by research findings, numerous phone calls to medical alert companies, and conversing with current medical alert consumers. This is not meant to sell readers a particular device. It is meant as a means to help readers learn the questions they should ask before they purchase a medical alert system for their homes and to help supply information about a few of the medial alert systems available on the market today. Questions: When searching for a medical alert system there are many questions that you should consider finding the answers to or calling the system provider and asking. One way you can find more information on the system is to go to the internet and do a search for the brand of systems. With the recent addition of the client computer at the Senior Center you can do your research right here. Another way you can get information is to call the system provider and ask questions, but be cautious! This method can create many headaches as you may have to deal with automated messages and recordings before you ever reach a person. You may also feel pressured by the sales person to purchase a unit or sign up for a free mailing before you get off the phone. Don t give in! You want to be an informed consumer so get all the answers for all the units you are interested in. Secondly, signing up for a free mailing often times leads to many telemarketing phone calls being made to you in an attempt to sell you the unit. These phone calls can happen at any time and occur many times a week or many times a day. On the flip side it can also be good to place a call to the place you may potentially work with once you purchase your unit. This will give you the chance to see how difficult it may or may not be to get in touch with the company
should you ever need to. If you do make a phone call to the systems customer service department, be steadfast in your decision to just gain information and inform them that you are just calling to ask some questions and you will be making your decision at a later time. Now, what questions should you ask? According to LifeStation.com, a maker of a medical alert system, some of the questions you should be asking are: Does your medical alert systems company operate its own monitoring center? This may be important to know since you will be in an emergency situation and you want to know that you will be communicating with someone who is going to care about the situation you are in. Also this will give you the chance to see if the system calls a call center or if it calls directly to local emergency operators. What happens when emergency services or friends and family need to be contacted? Will someone stay on the line while another calls for help? This may be important because response time can seem to take a very long time when you are in an emergency situation. Someone remaining on the line while another is calling for help can help ease your mind while you wait for help to arrive and you can continually update your condition to the person who is on the line with you. Do calls for help go to a monitoring center or directly to emergency services? The importance of this is personal choice. If you would like to use your service to contact family members, you would like one that goes to a call center. If you would like one that will contact 911 directly, you will want a model that directly contacts 911 connecting you to a 911 emergency operator in your area. There is a risk with using the automatic 911 call option according to LifeStation.com, Overuse of 911 services has caused many municipalities to de-emphasize or even prohibit emergency calls from medical alert systems that are not routed through a monitoring center. What is the cancellation policy? Many times, it is less expensive a year to buy a service contract for one year, but what happens if you want to cancel the service for any reason? You will probably want to get a service that will allow you to cancel the service at any time without penalties or return shipping costs and one that refund any unused portions of the paid in advance amounts. What are the minimum payment requirements? You should never have to pay for something ahead if you do not choose to do so. Yes, there are cost breaks if you purchase unit service for one year, but you should also have the option to pay month by month if you choose. Along these same lines, you should not have to have a unit for 3-6 months before you will not incur penalties for returning the unit. You should never pay for a medical alert system after it has been returned to the company. Does it cost around $1 per day? If you are paying less than $1 a day, there may be some issues with quality of service but if you are paying more than $1 a day you may be overpaying for the service. Find a monthly service that comes out to be about $1 a day. Obviously, if you are buying the service outright (meaning you buy the unit and own your unit with no monthly fees) you will not pay $1 a day for the service and if you are purchasing a yearly plan (pay upfront for one year of service) it should not equate out to $1 a day.
Are there costs in addition to the monthly monitoring fee? In addition to a monthly monitoring fee, some medical alert companies charge upfront fees for shipping, installation or the purchase or rent of your medical alert console. There are many companies that offer their services with no other charges except a monthly fee. As for installation of your medical alert system according to LifeStation.com, it is as easy as plugging in an answering machine and does not require any professional setup. What are the customer service and technical support hours? You never know when you may have an issue with the alert system. Ideally, you would never have a problem, but if that situation arises, you will want a system that has customer service 24/7; not limited hours so that you can receive help immediately and not be without service for an extended period. How often do the help button's batteries need to be charged or replaced? This is important to ask. How will I be notified that the batteries or low or should I begin a regime of changing the batteries every so many months? Lower maintenance would be ideal for some people while for others that would not be an issue. Brands Researched Life Station The Life Station, available at www.lifestation.com or 1-877-288-4962, offers free shipping, no contract, no deposit, and no hidden fees. Users can cancel subscriptions at any time and if they have paid a year in advance and cancel early, they will get a refund of those unused months. Pendants are worn by the user with a speaker so that the user can speak right to the control center personnel from the unit that is attached to them, no yelling to a base unit that is located somewhere else in the house; this feature allows the unit to work outside the home within a specified distance as well. This unit will call a control center where you will state your emergency and then the control center will contact the appropriate agency to assist you. When placing a phone call to Life Stations customer service department the call went right to a person for prompt service. The life station costs according to their website are as follows: $25.95/ month for a one year paid subscription to be a yearly cost of $311.40 per year $27.95/ month for a 6 month subscription to be paid every 6 months for a cost of $167.70 for 6 months or $335.40 for a full year on the 6 month plan. $29.95/ month paid monthly. This option will cost $359.40 a year on the month to month plan. Bay Alarm Medical Station The Bay Alarm Medical Station, available at www.bayalarmmedical.com or 1-888-901-8303, offers no long term contract, and no activation or start-up fee. The plan is less expensive if users pay for a year ahead but if the plan needs to be canceled for any reason there is no refund on the unused months. Users wear a small pendant with an emergency button only. Once the unit is activated, users must yell to a base station what their emergency is at which time the control center will call the appropriate emergency agency. The Bay Alarm Medical Station costs according to their website are as follows: $19.95/ month for a one year paid subscription to be a yearly cost of $239.40 per year
$24.95/ month for a 6 month subscription to be paid every 6 months for a cost of $149.70 for 6 months or $299.40 for a full year on the 6 month plan. $27.95/ month paid monthly. This option will cost $335.40 a year on the month to month plan. Life Line by FirstStreet Life Line by FirstStreet, available www.firststreetonline.com or 1-800-704-1209, has no longterm contract, no equipment costs, no installation fee, and no activation fees. This unit is provided as a pay as you go unit and if the user wants to cancel, all that has to happen is to return the unit. Users will wear a pendant and when an emergency happens the user will press the alert button. Once the alert button is activated, users will hear the call center employee from the base hub. The user will then need to yell to the base what their emergency is at which time the proper emergency agency will be dispatched. When calling, the customer service representative will answer questions and help with any concerns a user may have. The Life Line by FirstStreet costs according to their website are as follows: $34.95/ month When purchasing one year: Pay for 11 months get the 12 th month free, total yearly cost: $384.45 Life Line also offers a unit that is called AutoAlert that will automatically notify the call center that the user has fallen and they will dispatch the emergency agencies automatically to the users home. This units price is $13 a month. If users by 11 months at a time they will receive the 12 th month free so the cost for this unit for one year would be $143.00. Life Alert Life Alert, availability is limited at www.lifealert.com, has a three year contract with the requirement that users fulfill that contract or users pay to break the contract. Set up fees might be associated with this service but you will not know until they actually set up the unit. The unit is a base unit that one must yell into when an emergency arises. When placing a phone call to Life Alert it goes to a recording. Once callers reach a person one can expect to be asked for address information so Life Alert can send a free brochure. Once callers have done this, the Life Alter representative will end the phone call and instruct the caller to use the other 1-800 number on the brochure when they receive it to ask any questions. This is the hitch. Once callers have given out their address and phone number for their free brochure they can expect to be called at least once a week by Life Alert in a telemarketing effort to get people s business. According to an online blog, Life Alert will call at random times of the day trying to convince people to buy their product. Gaining information on the Life Alert is pretty near impossible without getting this brochure, but one must weigh if the telemarketing is worth the brochure. Due to the inability to get information from Life Alert our research did not allow us to get information regarding the prices for Life Alert systems. P&R Medical Connection, Van Wert, Ohio Purchasing items over the phone or via the internet can be very intimidating and scary for people who are not familiar with the process. If you feel this way, want to be able to speak to someone in person, or just want to deal with someone local, P&R Medical Connection might be the place
for you. The Guardian Alert and the Freedom Alert are the two units carried by P&R Medical Connection. The Senior Center has brochures for these two units located on the information table if you would like to see one. You can also call or stop by P&R Medical Connection to speak with someone about the units they have available. Each unit is unique but equally effective. The Freedom Alert has no contracts, no activation fee, no instillation free, and no other hidden fees. The way it works is it will contact four contacts that the user has entered into the memory to alert them that they have an emergency. These contacts can be family members, doctors, friends, or anyone else that can be trusted to help if needed. If these four contacts are not able to be contacted then the Freedom Alert will make a 5 th phone call to 911. The unit can be switched to contact only 911 should the user choose to have this setting turned on only. This unit will work outside within a 600 foot radius because the pendant that is worn has the speaker and microphone built in. This unit has a one-time cost from P&R Medical Connection for $259.95 plus tax. The Guardian Alert has no contracts, no activation fee, no instillation free, and no other hidden fees. The way it works is it will contact 911 directly. This could save precious time since it does not connect to anyone other than a 911 operator. This unit has a one-time cost from P&R Medical Connection $179.00 plus tax. Visit the makers of Guardian Alert and Freedom Alert on the internet at www.logicmark.com. If you want to watch a video about each product take your mouse and hover over the products tab then drag the mouse down to which system you would like to see and then slide over to Watch Video. A new screen will come up in which you will click Click Here for Consumer Video then select the type of internet speed you have. If you are at the Senior Center using the new client computer you would select High Bandwith. Then just sit back and enjoy the video. A Side Note A medical alert is not just for someone if they fall. A medical alert is a handy asset if someone s home is being broken into or if there is a fire in the home. Users can just press the emergency call button and be able to connect with someone who can get help to the home quickly. If you find yourself in a position where you would like a medical alert system or if you know someone who would like one, consider suggesting it as a Christmas gift. This system is truly one that will keep on giving year after year.