Choosing a Medical Alert With Fall Detection

If you fall, your medical alert system can help get you the help you need.

Most systems come with a button you can press in the event of a fall, but if you can’t do it or find yourself too far away to reach the help button, automatic fall detection will ensure that an emergency response team is dispatched to your home.





Choosing a Medical Alert with Fall Detection

The best fall detection medical alerts are designed to sense sudden changes in body position and movement (such as the sudden acceleration of a fall) and send that information to a monitoring center to alert an emergency responder. This type of device can be worn around your neck or wrist, depending on the manufacturer, and is waterproof.

Currently, most of these devices have an accuracy rate of about 80% to 90%, according to a Medical Guardian technical bulletin. In some cases, false positives can occur from things like dropping a medical alert device, but they are typically not severe enough to cause a response from the monitoring team.

Some of these devices also have a range extender that connects your base station to a communicator that can be placed in another part of your home, like on your porch or even in your garage. You can add this feature to your medical alert system for a small additional fee, but be sure to choose one that works with a reliable phone line and doesn’t have a complicated installation process or other drawbacks.