Aging doesn’t mean confining oneself to the home or eschewing favorite places and activities that sustain daily existence. If gardening is your jam, you’ll want to keep those flowers blooming. If coffee with friends is a favorite pastime, seniors should want to continue traveling to favorite coffee shops. If grocery store runs fill the pantry, those essential errands aren’t going away, either. It’s important for seniors to stay active and well within their communities for their physical and emotional well-being. But let’s address something few people want to talk about.
Age doesn’t bring safety concerns that end at the front door.
Should an accident occur in the home, there’s a chance medical intervention may be complicated by the location of a person’s comfort zone. There are plenty of statistics regarding falls and heart attacks and the unfortunate realities of aging. Yet planning for safety gets people most comfortable in their homes while avoiding what could happen on a routine walk through the grocery store or garden center parking lot.
The Mobile Safety Consideration
Millions of seniors travel just beyond their four walls daily and engage with their communities. They volunteer at various organizations, do groceries and errands, visit family and friends, and maintain the social connections that make them healthy and happy. And while all this should be encouraged, medical emergencies are far less likely to happen in one’s neighborhood than at home.
Consider someone who falls on the gravel parking lot of a grocery store in the middle of the day when everyone’s in the aisles. Think of someone who has chest pains while strolling through the neighborhood park where cell reception may be dodgy, or they’re too weak to call for help, much less walk to find help or a landline.
Beyond pedestrians and bystanders under other time constraints, there’s usually no swift emergency response solution except utilizing a cell phone or finding another person with ease. Yet by this time, complications have already arisen, where time is of the essence.
This is where modern mobile emergency response technology becomes essential for active seniors. Companies across the world now offer devices that work anywhere cellular service reaches, providing immediate connection to professional emergency response teams. Life Assure mobile medical alert systems represent one such solution, though seniors should research various mobile emergency services in their area to find the best fit for their lifestyle and budget needs.
Mobile systems can also attach to GPS location services, which help responders find clients when they can’t describe where they are or what’s wrong. For example, fall detection technology has become more sophisticated to determine impact speed and sudden abnormal movements to deploy an emergency response instead of relying on the client without consciousness to seek help.
Safety Awareness Beyond the Home Environment
Most people know that falls are the biggest injury culprit with older adults; yet location statistics prove an interesting dynamic. For as many falls as occur in homes, just as many happen at grocery stores, parking lots and outside public buildings where emergencies get complicated even more.
In public, everyone is their own agent; they assume someone else knows how to help or will step up. In crowds, it’s challenging for people to find where someone is located for specific help, or if they’re in distress or unconscious outside of earshot, someone else could be on the other side of the building attempting to get help when no one knows it’s needed for miles around.
Moreover, winter complicates things further – while ice makes it easier to slip and fall on stairs and out of homes, it complicates someone getting assistance if emergency services can’t get there as fast as they wish. The same goes for errant outdoor events from summer storms to befallen tree limbs.
Emergencies away from home regarding heart attacks and strokes, diabetic episodes and medication reactions require immediate professionals’ attention. Whether in a rush or next diverted attention span away from assistance-requiring urgency, the sooner professionals can come armed with information and treatment options that fit everyone’s needs, the better the outcome.
Developing a Mobile Safety Game Plan
Wherever one goes requires practical consideration on if mobile safety is needed for everyone traveling beyond their home or just themselves. First, people should honestly assess their risks – and if they consistently frequent the same neighborhood locations versus venturing out more beyond state lines, they have different variables worth considering.
Consider someone who never leaves their town – as opposed to someone whose car is often packed because they take spontaneous trips wherever life may take them. Medical considerations factor into both scenarios as do medication journeys.
Once assessed – and gone with – travel outside of locations must always include in-person updated medical notes where emergency contacts live since too many people think they’ll be able to express themselves during emergencies, but medical accidents involve language challenges no matter what.
Current mobile options retain information via formal profiles emergency responders can access before people even have a chance to communicate when they activate an alert device. Therefore it’s essential to work with local offerings to ensure this data can be compiled so professionals know about special conditions ahead of time when someone with chest pain needs immediate help.
Technology That Travels With You
While growing vulnerable in years doesn’t lend well to anyone taking responsibility for themselves as automatic but reality is, devices that help safety ensure mobile options combine multimodality wherever feasible – GPS ensures responders know where clients are traveling while cellular connectivity even at low-level spots means professionals will be on call.
Waterproof resistance has become more common; whether it rains unexpectedly or droplets from heat-age sweat, devices need to work – and operate – without error. If someone expects a device to work for three days away from home without charging yet needs immediate assistance, what’s become frustrating in all this digital convenience?
Fall detection has become one of those technologies that help where hypotheticals determine what’s a real emergency; sophisticated alert systems can detect falls versus simply bending over for stretched misconceptions which gives responding employees time.
Two-way communication helps as well; speaking with responding professionals gives context no one else may have – even provided data isn’t always able to tell someone what’s wrong when additional information will do.
Practical Considerations for Daily Use
Meeting with certain executives from alert associations meant weighing mobile safety against practical usage for daily safe travel; telephonic communication helps until the device comes into play; that’s when responsibility becomes even more serious for clients who’ve not yet experienced an emergency situation.
This means weight matters – size matters; devices worn comfortably for seniors without arthritis complications – or otherwise limited dexterity limitations – make all efforts moot for anything cumbersome – and vice versa.
Gone are the days when only pendants existed; options now exist with wrist bands or belt clips depending on preference – or disconnect for those who don’t want to be called out as alert users in public but feel comfortable without any discernable device active at all.
There’s also a need for those who want theirs known – and position themselves actively seeking assistance.
Building Support Networks And Weather Considerations
Technology offers an excellent emergency professional response; however, mobile safety extends beyond formal networks. Informal check-in involvement creates back-ups whenever needed but people need supplemental networks – which bring general safety awareness through combined locations and socialization.
Weather is a challenge 365 days a year; winter falls increase risk and an inability for response staff willing to get there as soon as possible – and summer brings heat risk – that sunburns and dehydration can complicate if meds keep someone indoors.
Wherever feels safest ultimately needs mobile protection worth assessing for vulnerabilities that change throughout seasons – and offset how reactions can occur during these times beyond one’s control.
Making the Right Choice
Mobile service options provide something that requires monthly cash flow – but it’s more about weighing risk without having access that ends up costing more – emergency room visits after extended hospital assessments – and issues beyond daily fees.
You want what works best without added supplements, but there’s no second chance without protection given and lifestyle values should be altered accordingly. Since it’s only natural we all live our lives and age; mobile planning should serve as solutions instead of keeping people safe necessarily confined.
Comfortable movement means protecting independent living so risks aren’t eliminated 100% but assessed sensibly so active living is safe into one’s golden years.
