Do you have an elderly relative and worried they may fall? See what the statistics say:-
30% of all elderly who fall will lead to an injury.
Aged 65+ the likelihood increases to 2 out of 3 people.
The likelihood they’ll fall Outside versus Inside Surprisingly the likelihood of falling outside or in are pretty even;
55%, that’s just over half of falls are inside the an elderly persons home and
45%, that’s just under half of falls will occur outdoors.
Where Falls happen outside the house:
Half of them that’s 23% are take place quite near the home,
The other half 22% happen somewhere well away from home
Analysis of all falls & places these falls will happened (total Inside & Outside)
About half, that’s 43% are at ground or floor level.
1.4 in 10 (14%) are whilst on stairs or steps
11% 1.1 in 10 are on the Curb or sidewalk
1 in 10 (9%) is whilst on furniture like a Chair or Bed
4% (1 in 20) is whilst using the Bath,shower or toilet
with 2 in 10 (19%) as unknown or unspecified.
These are the main reasons why older adults will falls
59% (2 out of every 3 falls) is due to slipping, tripping or stumbling
1 out of every 5 falls (22%) is because of losing balance, fainting, seizure or dizziness.
19% (2 out of every 10 falls) is due to some other cause
When someone falls what will the outcome /result of Fall be?
Just under 1 in every 3 (28%) will result in short or long-term limitations in daily living activities, possibly needing a stick or support.
20% (1 out of every 5) results in an overnight stay at hospital.
What can be done to prevent falls?
Common sense precautions ; non-slip rugs, handrails where needed etc.
Ask an Occupational Therapist (OT) to inspect the house and make follow their recommendations.
What if you’re still worried and want to get a fall detector?
Fall Detectors
Bear in mind, you’ll get about 30 false positives alerts (false alarms), so remember the boy that cried wolf, fall detectors work on deceleration and knocks and bumps will easily trigger the alarm, with so many false alarms, family take their time responding and users feel like a burden that they are troubling others so stop wearing them.
It’s nice to think that technology is the answer, but checking in daily if you have time beats any tech because creating that personal connection gives your relatives and friends confidence someone cares, which keeps away depression, motivates them to do something and keeps their muscles moving and strong, so if they did fall they’d recover quickly.
Our honest recommendation
If we are asked as an Alert and Alarm company which device we would recommend, then it would be the Apple Watch but wow, its expensive and it’s not for everyone and can be a little complicated to use.
The other option is a call centre based pendent nurse call type of system; however unless they have a call out service where someone will go round and help, then is is what their procedure is : A) Call the person who raised the alarm, ask if they want emergency services and if they do, merge the call. B) If they can’t get in touch with the user, or it’s not life threatening, they call family members one-by-one until they get through to someone who then takes responsibility to attending the home and helping.
That’s a premium price for something 99% of people can do themselves, anyone with a smartphone can call their elderly relative and then merge the call with emergency services, or call emergency services direct and tell them to call their family member, it’s all about getting the alert out to family members immediately so someone can do something., however where not knocking call centre based systems, they work perfectly fine, but we wanted users to have an affordable choice.
Why not try My SOS Family it’s free for 14 days, have a look at the website as we have the Smartphone / iPad App, voice enabled functions and also a system for simple home phones like a cordless phone, by simply speed-dialing a single special number you add in contacts everyone is alerted, but unlike free systems see how our unique system means only one person deals with it.
We have some special unique features, for example whilst we also SMS everyone like every other alert system, because we know 62% of SMS’s are ignored for the first 10 minutes during the day and 93% are ignored during the night, the My SOS Family Alert system calls all emergency contacts, significantly improving the chances of alerts being noticed immediately.