Emergency call for elder parent

[meierlde]

I bought my dad one of those pendent buttons probably 10 years ago. He would never wear it and finally disconnected the base unit because it kept making a noise (out of batteries). Also, bought him a cell phone, but he "lost" it somehow and wouldn't use one of "those kind of phones". Lately, he has been putting his cordless landline phone in his walker basket. Good thing. Just tonight he called from the kitchen floor. Fell again and this time was having a hard time getting up. So, DW and I drove over and helped him up. I swear the guy must have bones made of rubber as many times as he's fallen over the years and has never broken anything. He refuses in home help and refuses to move somewhere. His doctor told me there is really nothing that we can do to force him anywhere since he's still of sound mind. Basically waiting for fall that puts him in the hospital (as bad as that sounds). But, I think he knows deep down that the time is coming soon to do something.

There do exist cellphone wrist watches which take a sim card so they are full cell phones, not extensions of some smart phone. For a guy wearing a wrist watch may be easier to do since he may have worn one much of his life.
Of course a bit longer term, once some bright monitoring company comes up with the idea of integrating with the amazon echo, there is a solution, the echo can cover a reasonably large area and if the service set it up so that if you said alexa mayday it would connect to the service you would have all the capabilities of the other monitoring systems (might need several echos depending on how the house is laid out. )

 

[folivier]

For the most part the elderly are truly stubborn. My grandfather was found outside his house by one of my cousins the following morning. He had a stroke sometime the night before and fell. Never found out what he was doing outside. Unfortunately he didn't survive.
My DW's aunt is 96 and hates having sitters "because all they do is sit around and watch me"! And she's fallen many times, usually when the sitters aren't there. And her pendant is usually somewhere else....

 

[MBAustin]

I just learned of a new emergency alert service that connects via bluetooth to your cell phone.

https://www.ripplesafety.com

It looks like it could also be useful for people who might be concerned for their safety in other circumstances (going to parked car late at night, for example).