Recently, a friend fell in her own bathroom and broke her hip. Fortunately, she was able to alert her housemate by banging the door open and shut.
When I hear such tales, I wonder what would have happened had she been alone in the house. Could she have crawled to her phone to summon help? What else could she have done?
Numerous companies offer devices you wear around your wrist or neck with a button to summon help. The devices are intended to be worn at all times including in the shower. In most cases, you buy the equipment and pay a monthly service fee.
And the day is coming when our homes themselves monitor our health. They’ll track our blood pressure, diet and sleeping patterns and send the information to electronic doctors.
That future already exists. Google “home health monitoring” and you’ll be stunned how far we’ve come. Both ads and articles enthusiastically tout the potential health benefits, a potential reduction in health care expenditures and a flowering of creativity and entrepreneurship. Wikipedia, Remote Patient Monitoring provides a summary.
Of course, a low-tech call-alert system is also a good idea, like an agreement with a neighbor to touch bases daily. That way, the longest you’d have to wait would be 24 hours.
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