What then happened could have been tragic. Margaret slipped off the chair and onto a steel peg bucket; the fall broke her femur in 3 places.
Margaret is 90 years old. She was unable to raise herself, complicated by bad arthritis in both shoulders.
Being an inner city suburb most of the neighbours were at work & despite her calls no one heard her. She was on the deck for more than two hours before she was able to gather the strength to painfully crawl from the deck into the kitchen. From there it took another 3 hours to crawl to the dining room, where laying on the floor exhausted & in substantial pain she was able to light the gas heater to keep warm. Margaret remained here for another 3 hours until her nephew came home from night shift. The phone was in another room at the end of the house & on a high dresser so reaching that was never an option.
By this stage Margaret was not in good shape & she was taken to Auckland Hospital where she remained for nearly 3 months.
With no previous history of falls or medical worries, Margaret didn’t have a medical alarm to hand. She made a full recovery but the family couldn’t help thinking if it could be avoided.
3 years prior, exactly the same thing happened to a family in the UK. Unfortunately in that case, the outcome was tragic. This led the family, who were in the business of technology, to design a revolutionary home alarm that has now available in New Zealand.
And Margaret’s family say it could have prevented the pain and suffering she went through.
Called SeNCit, the discreet unit attaches to the wall and plugs into a normal power outlet. It monitors for movement and lets loved ones know by txt message if there hasn’t been any when there should be. It can be controlled via any mobile phone via txt and can even be turned into an intruder alarm for when you pop out the house.
It can be programmed to monitor for movement at times of the day when there normally should be activity – therefore unobtrusively letting you know if this isn’t the case, so you can phone and check on loved ones.
Margaret’s Nephew Alan says:
“Two things were very clear with my Aunts situation – her fall & subsequent injuries were significantly aggravated by her inability to seek assistance & secondly she experienced an excruciating level of pain for a prolonged period that could have been avoided. With SeNCit, we would have been alerted much sooner and all that would have happened without her having to physically activate anything.”
With an ageing and yet active population, many of us will experience parents and loved ones who may be susceptible to falls. We can’t always be there for them but SeNCit provides valuable peace of mind that everything is OK.
Read the testimonial: “When a txt message may save a life“.
Contact SeNCit
Runner-up ‘Invention of the Year 2012’
P: 0800 4 SENCIT
F: +64 9 353 8301
E: contact@sencitmonitor.com
W: www.sencitmonitor.com
PO Box 41030, St. Lukes, Auckland 1346
33 College Hill, Ponsonby, Auckland