This post is just a bit of a rant.
I don’t understand why the medical alerts from the major companies that make them are all so ugly.
It’s not the base station that bothers me so much. (But maybe it should.) But the pendants are godawful. It’s clear they are made using the cheapest materials and design process imaginable.
It’s embarrassing to presume that just because someone is old they’ll be willing to wear an ugly gray panic button on their wrist.
These kinds of devices practically scream, “I’m old and I can’t take care of myself.”
I suspect if you asked people over 65, “would you like a device that could call for help if you got hurt?” most would say yes. But if you showed them the average medical alert system, they’d run screaming.
Back to the base station for a moment. If you look at the marketplace for phones and answering machines, you won’t find many products as unstylish as the base stations for medical alerts. All you get is a plain white plastic box that looks like it was state of the art in 1984. Compare that to even a middling cordless phone and you have to wonder what’s going on. The units are ugly in comparison, like something out of Soviet-era central planning.
Joe, it’s good to see you raise this issue – I’m amazed more writers on the subject have not brought it up. However, you may like to know that at least one manufacturer in the UK is doing something about this with a new range expected to be on the market next month. You can read about Tynetec’s Reach (hub) and Touch (button) on Telecare Aware: http://www.telecareaware.com/index.php/tsa-2010-tue-16nov.html and/or see them in this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htly5du0oCQ
Regards, Steve
Editor, Telecare Aware
If you think gray is ugly, try Pink! Hey…At least it is for a good cause. Our clients love them. Black is pretty popular with men, especially worn on the wrist. We are not in the home PERS business, but if a senior ever moves into an assisted living community, there is a good chance they will be protected by a Tel-Tron system.
Have you looked at the new product SilverCare? It actually looks pretty stylish. You can see it at http://www.gosilverplus.com.
Happy searching.
@ Jun – Interesting product, pity about the ‘groovy older people’ stock photos on the website! ‘Real’ people would make it look more authentic.
Good article, I’ve always wondered this myself.
For Canadians, Help-Now’s devices are pretty decent. They’re white, kinda Apple-ish, and look like they are from this century. http://www.help-now.ca/products
Rant away on this topic!
My husband’s mother only wore her monitor when we were around — and she tried not to do that if it was possible. Otherwise it was just too plain ugly. She would have chosen to be stranded in her apartment or a desert island rather than feel ugly — it was hard enough for her not to feel that way as she aged into her 90th year. Mother was a beauty who dressed (or toward the end we helped her dress) in her blazer, cotton blouse, and trousers until the day she died.
Something more like a jewelry pendant that we could have put on a gold or silver chain? That would have completely changed the dynamics of the situation. We had the chains, but the monitor was horrible and she wanted nothing to do with it. And there was no way we could make it any more enticing.
Given what we were already paying for for monitoring, paying a bit more for something that looked pretty and, well… dignified, would have been well worth it!