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Senior citizens or the elderly are most often the ones who need a good and reliable senior medical alert. However, they are not the only ones, as there is actually no age limitation on who can avail of the services of personal medical alerts. Anyone who needs a round-the-clock monitoring, especiall those with a higher than normal risk (people undergoing rehabilitation, or recuperating at home, and so on). Aside from that, round-the-clock monitoring served on an individual basis can be costly, and not everyone with aging parents or relatives can afford such services. The other common alternative is entering the elderly loved one in a housing for seniors, staffed with nurses, caregivers, and other appropriate medical personnel. The downside, aside from the costs, is that most senior people do not particularly warm up to the idea of having to spend their twilight years in a senior housing—they pine to remain living in their own homes, in close proximity to their loved ones and the local community who have known them all their lives. This situation has given rise to services such as a medical alert system. Medical alert systems have been invented precisely due to the fallibility of normal human attention—it is so designed to make sure that a senior person, who is constantly at risk for some medical event or other, can have a reliable means to call for help. There is a growing number of people who would prefer to have their aging loved ones live with them, and the only thing that is stopping them are apprehensions regarding safety—what if something happens with the elderly relative and they happen to be out at work? What if nobody hears the screaming? Worse, what if the elderly relative figures in an accident that happens so quickly there is not much time to ask for help? Needless to say, the medical alert system (at least, the best of them whose reliability has been proven over the years) has been invented to “fill in the gaps of human attention and care,” so to speak. Using such a service is also fairly simple: the elderly person only needs to wear a designated device (to be worn on the wrist, around the neck, or as a belt clip-on) at all times, and it is this device that will act as the sernior person’s constant link to a monitoring center trained to act swiftly in case of an accident or a medical event. Say, the senior person suffers from a heart attack or has an accident, he or she only needs to press the medical alert system’s wearable device and contact is instantly established. Depending on the setup, the response center on the other end of this communication will either alert the designated relatives or friends, or immediately call the local paramedics. Clearly, a medical alert system can be used by anybody regardless of age or gender, as long as their personal situation demands that they are constantly in touch with a highly trained quick response team that can immediately provide the assistance they need. While the elderly are most likely the ones who are subscribers to this service (in fact, senior citizens are the overwhelming majority), that does not mean medical alertsare exclusively for seniors. For instance, even those who are of middle age and with a slight medical risk can avail of the service of a medical alert system. There is a particular case of a 40-year-old man who had the foresight to use a medical alert system, and it soon turned out to be a sagacious decision because in a few months after the system has been in place (he was wearing the medical alert on a wrist), he was in the shower one morning when suddenly he experienced what would later turn out to be a stroke. Unable to speak, he fell down where he had been standing (in the bathroom) and he would have been a goner if not for that crucial moment he pressed the button on his medical alert bracelet. The response team on the other end of the line quickly dispatched and ambulance, and he was, as good stories end, saved. While anyone can use a medical alert system, of course its use is somewhat limited to only those who are still capable of “remembering” to press the button in the event of an emergency.
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