Always Connected Care Giver

As an installer of personal emergency response systems for about ten years as a stranger coming to a senior’s home and placing these unidentified objects on their counters, then telling them that all would be better now was probably the hardest thing in the process.  Sure, sometimes I was stalled at the phone step of setting up the appointment with, “I don’t want it”, “my kids are making me do this” and other expletives to which I calmly replied, “They… (always blame it on “they”) want me to stop by and explain things”. So when I get in their door and do everything I can with my body language, listening skills, and speaking slowly to “sell” them on the idea that having and using this new contraption will truly help them, they agree to give it a try.  “Your kids won’t be calling you all the time checking in on you”, and “you will now have independence and freedom”; my basic practical and hopefully appropriate responses were always couched in emotion because people make decision...

As an installer for the originator of the first medical alert system, I have some idea of its history. The following information is true to the best of my knowledge and is presented here as a bit of a background and not as "gospel". If you really want to dig further into the fascinating background of how all of the medical alert systems came about, you've got the Internet and as everyone knows, "If it's on the Internet is has to be true", Abraham Lincoln.  History of Personal Emergency Response Systems People have fallen from the beginning of time and very shortly after the creation of gravity. You may remember the story of Daedalus, the father of Icarus, who molded two sets of wings out of wax and quills for both he and his son. Overwhelmed by happiness in being able to fly, the unwise Icarus took off into the sky, but getting excessively near the sun; the heat softened the wax so Icarus fell into the ocean and died. This idea of flying is probably too fant...

 How I became involved with ECG, Electronic Caregiver I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything” which can mean a lot of things but for me, it means that I stand for helping others “ not to fall”. I was introduced to this industry a few years back when I became an installer for a well-known company that manufactured PERS units, Personal Emergency Response Systems. These were units about the size of a small toaster that sat on a counter somewhere in the “center” of the home where a person spent most of the day, with the person wearing a wristband or neck pendant that they would push in the event of a fall or any emergency. I absolutely loved what I did. The company faxed or emailed me the work order, I called the person (who was expecting the call (the unit was usually ordered by a caregiver, nurse, or other health professionals), went to the home, “installed” the system, and then explained how to use it. “Explaining” took ...