Case Study 1

George, 73 lives alone and whilst he still leads an active life his son now lives in America. George suffers from mild epilepsy which means he occasionally has seizures and finds himself on the floor unable to get up. When he is at home alone he always wears his pendant and is able to activate a call through to the control centre where an operator can assess whether George needs an ambulance sent to him or just requires reassurance and orientation after a seizure.

Case Study 2

Edith 63 and Noel 64 live together. They have two children who live nearby but Noel suffered a stroke recently which has left him with limited mobility and no speech. Edith is Noel's main carer but she still likes to attend her weekly painting class at the local community centre. Knowing Noel has a wrist pendant and alarm unit means she can go without worrying about him.

Edith knows that if the Control Centre receive an alarm activation from their home but the operator receives no reply, they will always try her mobile first to let her know about the call. The Control Centre know that Noel has speech difficulties and that Noel will knock on the table once if he needs help and twice if everything is fine. If Noel knocks once, the Control Centre will call an ambulance and alert Edith on her mobile phone. If Edith does not answer, they will call one of his children and inform them of the situation.

Having an alarm also reassures Edith that if anything were to happen to her, Noel would be able to raise the alarm himself despite his inability to use the telephone.