I currently have a Fall button called Safety Line but I can't find any reviews of it. (It is paid for). So I don't know if it is good. I had one previously I paid for and woke up one morning to see a cord-like "thing" on the floor, which I thought was a belt. But no, it was my "fall" alert button, which must have fallen off when I got up in the evening. No call, alarm etc. So, I cancelled. Someone on another forum recommended Phillips Lifeline. I had a bad fall recently, so I need a good one, as I live alone. Any suggestions? It seems that there are hundreds out there. Thanks.
Pick a sensible time of day, such as late morning, when the call handlers shouldn't be too busy, and test it. When they answer, you explain that you're running a check, thank them for their response (or, though I hope not, say "what the heck kept you??!!" depending on how long it took), and they'll thank you in turn and wish you a good day.
Our clients' lifelines (the terms vary) are supposed to be checked "regularly" in this way but nobody seems to have said what constitutes regularly :) I run through the routine with them if their alarms are: a) new to them; b) misbehaving in some way; c) just rescued from the back of the kitchen drawer after heaven knows how long in purdah; or d) if the client is just generally worried.
Doing this "rehearsal" is also a good way to check that you can hear the responder and the responder can hear you. So don't stand next to the control box, make it authentic by being in the kitchen or similar.
I'm sorry to hear that you came to fall. Did your alarm help in that situation?
PS: lately (yesterday/today/last few days), every time I go to this forum it is asking me to log in with pw, online name, etc. It's a pain and will eventually make me skip this forum, as it takes too long to do this -- and the forum has lots of good advice. Is this happening to anyone else? I'm recent here (joined a few months ago), and it didn't happen before. Do I contact the site adminis to see what's going on? Thanks.
Doesn't matter how fancy or amazing the thing is, if they won't put it on, then it's pointless. I can't count how many times my MIL's has gone off (she's fallen, or whacked it on something, or dropped it) but never ONCE was it a true emergency.
She also won't use her walker, She slides a kitchen chair around the house. She thinks using a walker makes her look old. Well, shoving a heavy wooden chair around makes her look demented. And she will hit the back of the chair with the fall pendant. The alarm DOES go off, but she cannot hear it.
The firemen breaking her plate glass windows to get to her? THAT she can hear.
After about 4 'no calls' the fire dept told her they would start charging her for calls that were not 'legit'. To my knowledge, it's been better, but not by much.
The Bay people said they get lots and lots of false alarms with the fall-alert type monitor, so I chose not to get that one. She won't test her system monthly, as the company suggests, so I do that every time I'm there. They answer promptly, and it's loud enough to wake the dead, but if she doesn't respond, they will call for emergency assistance per our instructions.