In TED Conference Talk Feb 2008, neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor moved the audience with her own experience of a massive stroke in 1996. With stirring speech and gestures, Dr. Taylor enlivened the unforgettable morning she suffered stroke, when she was 37. Because of the hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain, she was paralyzed on the right side, and she lost her ability to think, talk, read, write, or recall anything in her life…
Struggling with her loss of brain functions, Dr. Taylor managed to get herself to the phone side, found her colleague’s contact and called him for help. Unlike normal persons, that was an extremely difficult process for her. She told the audience she spent 45 minutes to go through an inch thick of business card stack and finally found her colleague’s. However, she could not recognize any of the symbols on the business card. What she did was to match the symbol’s shape on the card with the one on the phone pad and pressed the matched digits one by one using her paralyzed right hand. When she finally got the number dialed, she realized that she could not decipher her colleague’s speech nor hers at all — her language ability was totally lost. Fortunately, her colleague sensed that she needed help and came to her rescue. She has survived the stroke.
As a brain scientist, Dr. Taylor knew well how the brain functions and affects the body. And she was calm enough to handle the situation. But think about your elderly parents and grandparents. How would they react if something similar happened to them? What if they failed to handle such critical situation by themselves? What if they were alone at home? What if they were unable to make a call for help? There are just too many what-ifs we can imagine, but if you love them, do consider the worst scenarios they could encounter and start taking safety precautions now.
A medical alarm system is designed to assist the elderly just in case they need immediate help but happened to be alone. Unlike the conventional panic buttons, BrickHouse Alert Tele-Assist features a fall alert detector that automatically alerts the emergency personnel that the wearer has fallen and cannot even push a button for assistance. The system is ideal for home. So if you have to leave your parents or grandparents alone at home, Tele-Assist can help you to watch over them like a live helper yet without interfering their activity.
Outdoors, the Mobile GPS connects the wearer to live help at anytime and anywhere in the world. The GPS powered bracelet comes with a two-way built-in speakerphone that can be used like a cell phone and call for help with just a press of a button. In an emergency, the operator can immediately see where exactly the wearer is and thus summon help efficiently. In cases of wandering, that the wearer does not know where he or she is, due to Alzheimer’s, alert is automatically activated when wearer wanders outside of the designated area. The operator will call the wearer on the bracelet and dispatch help if necessary.
Protect your loved ones like how they protected you when you were a child. You can give them more with the medical alarm systems. In the case that you can’t be there immediately for their rescue, help is on the way.
