Old and alone – what if I fall?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I agree. I love texting because if you want to text at 5:45 instead of 6 or if your contact is busy at 6 but can check the text at 6:30, it’s more flexible.

Another thing that might work: Arlo. We have the cameras outside the house…you could share the password with your contact and they could see you. I know you wouldn’t want one in every room but maybe you could have an area set up, like you would for a zoom meeting. Ours records when motion detectors are triggered, so you could sit down and say “Everything’s fine today, hope you’re well” or whatever and it would be recorded—your contact would see that the motion detector was tripped and a video was made. They wouldn’t have to be sync-ed with you.

22

I wonder if those people had the thing forced on them by well-meaning (or otherwise) relatives, rather than choosing them for themselves. Therefore, they didn’t ask those kinds of questions of a disinterested third party, which is part of what I mean by considering all the options rationally. I think those fears probably are not very reasonable most of the time.

Yes, this is the sort of thing I was speculating probably exists; it seems like a good idea for someone who does have a caregiver available as the person to be called.

23

I have a friend whose husband died this year. Although fit and active, she immediately signed up for I Am Fine, which does a daily call at a pre-arranged time. It tries 5 times to reach you before contacting your backup. You can put it on hold if you’re not going to be available, or call/text early if you’ll be busy when they call. The service gives her a great deal of peace of mind.

StG

24

@Turble and anyone else to whom it may concern: I’m pretty sure we had a thread just a few weeks ago, in which we also discussed this very same issue at length. Hang tight, I’ll see if I can find it again . . .

25

@Turble and anyone else: Here it is: Okay, it’s more than a few weeks ago. This thread ran from April 2018 through Dec. 2021 and had 168 posts to it. I’m pretty sure this is the thread I’m thinking of:

26

Someone could get rich marrying together that canned, really loud, truck horn thingy, only altered to some sort of, ‘Need Help Now!’ signal.

Old folks could carry them in their pocket, wherever they go, or just leave one in every room. Loud enough to be heard from outside or across the street. Not expensive, low tech, no power required, no subscription fee or internet connection/wifi required.

You could probably even deploy it this way yourself, just inform your neighbours, should they hear two short blasts, that’s your signal, you need help! Even if a passerby hears it and comes to inspect, a note by the back door could say if you are hearing this please call help!

27

Was reading a similar thread on reddit and found this response, which is not something most of us could implement, but… wow:

"I put my grandparents whole house on home automation. The lights, doorbell, door lock, power sockets etc are all connected but also the TV, washing machine and oven are smart too, all through the same software. I also put PIRs around the house so that if they get up in the night they don’t have to find the lightswitch.

I sold it to them as so when they get comfortable in their chairs in the afternoon, if they realise they’ve left the cooker on they can turn it off. Or they can start the washer remotely after they’ve had a nap so it doesn’t disturb the quiet. But really it’s because there are scripts in the software to keep them safe. Their phones give me geofencing (so the software knows whether they’re in the house or not). The lights can pretty accurately work out when they’ve gone to sleep (IE, the last lights are turned off at night) and the PIRs catch them when they get up in the morning.

If they’re in the house, it’s daytime, and they don’t interact with 3 different devices in a 6 hour window, I get a notification. If they don’t get out of bed by 10am I get a notification. If they leave the house and don’t come back by sunset I get a notification.

You can call me big brother if you like but its not showing me live footage from their living room. It’s just giving me information that couid suggest there is a problem. I don’t go calling the cops… I can just call them or call my mum to check. As they get older and more high risk (and especially when it becomes just one of them) I can set up the same notifications on my mother and brothers phones too.

If there was an incident I feel like we would be alerted to it in far less than 24 hours."

28

Another idea, which wouldn’t work directly with your sister, but if you’re on good terms with neighbors would be easy and workable: Arrange a signal – for example, a front blind open or the porch light off by 8 am – that a neighbor can see easily. Give that neighbor your sister’s phone number and if the blind is still closed at 8 am, they could call your sister to check on you.

29

We did something like that with grandma, and it worked great. We’d also tried a service that would text if she left home, with her destination: “Grandma has stopped at the Fruit Ranch Grocery Store.”

I told my kids that if I ever get monitored like that, I’m going to mess with them by doing things like eating lunch in front of the adult bookstore.

30

I’m married, both my Wife and I are 61 yo. I work at home, my wife does not.

My home office stairs are steep. Think of what you might find on a navy ship. Oh yeah, I carry my cell phone, all day. I also carry it when I walk the dogs for sure. We live in a very icy/snowy environment. I’ve taken a couple of falls over the years that happen so fast, you don’t know you’ve fallen until you find your self on the ground. And others that look like a Three Stooges skit.

I take care of my elderly mother. She lives 100 miles away. I bought her an emergency button. But she flat out refuses to wear it. It’s a bone of contention between us. I have NO idea what the big deal is. She keeps it on her walker that can easily be too far out of reach if she falls. She has fallen twice and broken each hip.

She can wear the button on a wrist strap or a simple lanyard. She always has a few layers of clothing tops on, so just tuck the lanyard under the outer layer if it swinging from her neck is irritating.

She does usually keep a very old cell phone in her jacket pocket. But she is losing her sight. That’s sort of a solution. But it’s a hell of a lot heavier and more cumbersome than a button that maybe weighs a quarter of an ounce. I don’t get it.

When down for Christmas, I found that the button that she keeps on her walker had fallen off to the floor twice. Her solution is to attach it to the walker so it won’t fall off. Well, fine, if you can get to the walker after you fall.

I wish she would just wear the button. It would give me a lot of peace of mind. This drives me nuts.

My Wife and I searched for a nice retirement home. Found one. The place is brand spanking new (I toured it before construction was done). The place is great. Got mom a nice electric mobility chair so she could navigate around the facilities.

Then COVID struck. That nixed the entire plan . We did get our deposit back from the retirement community. The chair sits unused in her house. Her house really is too small to use it. The layout really isn’t condusive to it.

I understand that making a big change when older is hard. I’m looking at the same thing. But my Wife and I are making plans for relocating when we retire. That means selling our home that we have lived in for 30 years in 8-10 years. It will be hard, but that’s what we will do.

I guess, after this long post, I want to say that having some sort of ability to get help fast is not only just about you.

31

I’m 68 and live alone.
I have a panic button, which is jolly reassuring.
I’ve given the operating company the phone number of two local friends who have keys to my house, so emergency services don’t have to break the front door down when summoned.
The company also ring me every month to check all is well.

I thoroughly recommend this solution.

32

She calls you and then you say you are okay. Makes sense unless she is the type to panic first and have common sense later.

I had a lovely friend who died because he fell down the stairs before the days of cell phones. It was a week before he was found. I live in a single-level condo so you don’t think of falling risks but I heard my neighbor call for me in an anxious, pain-filled voice. She fell off a step ladder and broke her hip. I called 911 for her.

33

Last year I finally acceded to a friend’s concerns about me being alone and bought one of those medical alert buttons. I also got a lockbox for the front door so that if they need to call emergency services to save my ass the EMTs won’t have to break down my front door. In addition, one of my neighbors has a key to my house so if anything happens to me when I’m not home she can get in to see that my cats are fed.

In response to the concerns of my family back in Chicago I also post a “weekly check-in” on facebook every Monday to assure them that I’m still alive and well.

34

My father had one of those panic buttons. When he fell and was on the floor for 24 hours before he was found, we think he was crawling towards the room where he always left it instead of wearing it. By then he was in a coma and he died a week later.
My kids are now under strict instructions to remind me of that if I ever say something foolish like “I’m not gonna wear a necklace or wristwatch panic button thingy, I’m just not.”

35

At least for now Sis and I have decided I will send her a one character text at the appointed time. I’ll set a daily alarm on my phone to remind me to send it. That may change in the future thanks to your many helpful suggestions.

Thanks.

36

Sounds like a fair compromise. Thankfully, we now have a LOT of options to chose from, which, while perhaps frustrating are a lot better than the few-to-none of generations past.

Just don’t forget to revisit the issue, say once every 6 months or so, because it’s still easy to get complacent.

37

Do not send the skull or ghost emoji as a joke…

…oh, and when you do, you can blame me.

38

That’s pretty much how we lost my mother-in-law – she was fiercely independent and didn’t want to be a bother to anyone, so she didn’t call anybody on a regular (read: daily) basis and didn’t want everyone calling her constantly because that would make her a PITA. One day, she climbed the footstool, fell from the first rung and busted her hip, then lay there for the next day-and-a-half. By the time they found her, that sepsis disease had settled in and it wasn’t long before she was in hospice and she passed away soon after.

39

Useful emojis: :+1:t2: :-1:t2: :vulcan_salute:t2::ok_hand:t2::v:t2:

40

But how does that work, how can someone force you into a retirement home against your will just because you needed medical care once?

as for op, as mentioned voice activated systems like Google home or Alexa can call for help. however you have to be conscious and lucid to use them.