subject: The Importance Of Personal Emergency Response [print this page] Imagine yourself to be around 70 years of age and unable to move around with the youthful vigor that you once possessed. Even if you have help, they are hardly going to be around 24x7. All of a sudden you slip and fall in the bathroom and hurt yourself badly. With nobody around you to help or aid, the accident can become fatal.
Such accidents are not unusual or sadly even rare these days. Especially with improved mortality rate and life expectancy, there are a lot more senior people in the world than even a few decades back. And with his, the chances of a lone elderly person facing accidents have also increased manifold.
Hence it is imperative to equip them with a system to handle such unforeseen circumstances in life. Herein comes the use of "personal emergency response system ". It is not a computer or a telephone but a device which will itself decide the gravity of the situation and act suitably without any intimation needed from the user.
THE DEVICE:
The device can be as small as a pendant. It is programmed to read and analyze the human body motion. Any motion beyond the tolerable limits raises alarm in the device. The alarm is set in various levels. While some analyze deeper into abnormality of the motion and raise alarm accordingly, some others go ahead with lesser symptoms and place calls to the stored emergency numbers.
UTILITY:
With the increasing population of people over 65 years old, the society is facing a huge need for home-visit nursing and round-the-clock healthcare. If an aged person falls, it is important to detect the situation accurately and immediately because such accidents can become serious if not treated with urgency. This is where the need of a personal emergency device comes into play. It analyzes the movements of the person and in case of any abnormality sends a signal to the nearest emergency unit like hospital and / or to the emergency numbers stored in its memory.
These devices can be in the shape of a pendant or like a PDA. Some of the devices have several utility items like enhanced memory space for multiple emergency numbers storage. Also has a 2-way speaker system to enable an emergency contact person to communicate with the PES holder and gauge the situation.
The PES can send signals both by wireless as well as Bluetooth functionality. Another big advantage of this device is that there are no monthly monitoring fees as no monitoring is required for this device. It comes into use only when it is triggered and then it bypasses everything else to reach the emergency numbers stored in it.
PURCHASE:
Though these devices are extremely handy and helpful, yet one should be careful before simply buying one. The features of various devices are different and should be studied as per ones own needs before zeroing in on one.
