Choosing the right personal alarm for your elderly parent, relative, or friend is a big step towards making them feel safe and secure at home. As well as helping them to maintain their independence for longer, it can also bring peace of mind to you as well. But with a wide choice available, how do you choose the best personal alarm for their needs?

When anyone becomes older or infirm, or is struggling with any mobility or health issues, personal alarms can be life savers. But which one to use will largely depend on the requirements of the user. With different systems capable of doing different things and differing in price, not every personal alarm will suit everyone, and much will depend on whether the user is living alone or with a carer or relative.

Things to consider

Before looking into the choices available, it’s worth asking yourself and your elderly relative a few questions, so you can both make the best and most informed decision you can over which alarm will be best suited. Think about the physical or mental needs of the user and what the best alarm would be for their situation.

Is the user is a keen gardener, or do they enjoy being outside? Consider the range of a potential alarm so it can always be activated at the furthest point away from the house. If the alarm is battery operated, consider how long the batteries will last and when they’ll need to be changed to ensure constant cover. If the user will be wearing the alarm, either as a wristband or pendant, is it waterproof?

Which personal alarm is best?

The choice of personal alarms is wide reaching and caters for most needs and budgets. The most basic personal alarms can be cheaper to buy, but as a consequence will be limiting in their capabilities and may not meet the users full requirements. That said, there are plenty on the market that could prove to be successful.

Basic portable alarms are worn either around the neck or on the wrist of the user, and produce a loud noise when used. The flaw with this type of alarm is that to be effective, it relies heavily on a relative or carer, or at least someone, being close by when it’s activated.

This can be a major issue if the user lives alone or perhaps out of earshot of anyone nearby. If someone does hear it, there could be a delay trying to enter the house to administer the help needed. With its obvious limitations, these basic alarms can be successful even though they’re at the lower end of the price scale. However, they should only be in use if there are carers or relatives close by at all times.

An alternative to the portable alarm is the portable call button, or care paging system. When activated by the user, the call button triggers a signal that’s sent to a carer or relative’s pager who can then provide the help needed or call the emergency services.

Though this system has a relatively low range, usually within an averagely sized house or garden, it can be enough to activate the pager when it’s worn by the carer. And it can be more effective when there’s a chance a portable alarm might not be heard.

However, one of the drawbacks of a pager alarm is that it’s still reliant on a carer or relative being fairly close by when activated, and who also have access to rooms or premises. And it’s worth remembering that pager units might not use industry standard radio frequencies. This could mean the pager is susceptible to interference, which, in a worse case scenario, might fail to trigger the alarm.