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Medical Alerts: Just Tell Me What To Buy!

By:  Editorial Team   |  Posted: February 12, 2019   |  Updated: December 22, 2023

 

 

“I don’t want to become an expert on medical alerts. Just tell me what to buy.”

If the above is your point of view, this article is for you!

 

Many people love our in-depth, hands-on, testing of medical alert devices — and the Learning Module we have built. But not infrequently we hear comments like the statement above. In this article, we set out to make it very simple to get specific recommendations as to “which medical alert device you should buy”.

 

Good News Bad News

There is good news and bad news.

The bad news is that different types of people really should buy different types of medical alert systems. So there is not “one best medical alert for most people”.

The good news is that its pretty easy to group people into some broad “categories” — which we call personas. And for a given persona there are indeed some specific products we recommend.

It’s really just a question of picking which of a handful of personas is the best match to you and your lifestyle, and then reading our specific medical alert system recommendations for that persona.

So, if you just want us to “recommend a good medical alert device for YOU”, all you have to do is follow the two steps below.

  • Step 1: read the descriptions of several different “personas”, and decide which one is the best match to your lifestyle.
  • Step 2: Read our product recommendations for that persona.

 

 

Step 1: Decide which Persona Matches Your Lifestyle

While people come in many types and live many different lifestyles, we have found that as far as selecting a medical alert is concerned there are a few broad personas that matter. And most people will fall into one of these. At worst, you might decide your lifestyle means you fall somewhere between two of the personas.

We have described five separate personas.

Go to our “Medical Alert Persona” page. Read the personas, decide which one (or two) best match your life, write down the name of the persona, and come back to this page. If you are selecting a medical alert for someone else, then of course your goal is to match their life to the right persona.

 

Read the Medical Alert Personas

 

 

Step 2: Specific Recommendation for Your Persona

 

“Go-Go”. But At Risk. (Persona A)

View our medical alert recommendations for “Go, Go” Persona

“Slow Go”. Needs some oversight to keep safe. (Persona B)

View our medical alert recommendations for “Slow Go” Persona

“No Go”. Limitations. (Persona C)

View our medical alert recommendations for “No Go” Persona

“Needs Some (part time) Care” (Persona D)

View our medical alert recommendations for “Needs Some Care” Persona

“24/7 care in the home.” (Persona E)

View our medical alert recommendations for “24/7 care at home” Persona

 

None of These Personas Describe Me

What if none of these personas describe you?

To make it simple, we had to generalize. You may feel none of these is a good match to your lifestyle. If so, you can use our Selection Tool  to match specific features you care about to a list of specific products with those features. And if you are not sure which features you need, use our Learning Module to figure that out.

 

What About Other Products Not Mentioned Here

This page is about recommending some specific products. There are other products that are also good, although the ones mentioned here are what we recommend for each specific persona. You can easily broaden your search if you want using our selection tool (no longer available as of 2023).

It’s common for the same product to be sold by different medical alert vendors under different product names. But not all vendors offer equal service, nor do they all use the same responder service, so be cautious and ask questions if you decide to buy “the same” product from a different vendor under a different product name.

 

Independent, Objective Research

We pride ourselves on the independence and objectivity of our research. No vendors sponsored this work, nor did they write any of the material or provide any “free” products to review.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Disclosure: The research and opinions in this article are those of the author, and may or may not reflect the official views of Tech-enhanced Life.

If you use the links on this website when you buy products we write about, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate or other affiliate program participant. This does not affect the price you pay. We use the (modest) income to help fund our research.

In some cases, when we evaluate products and services, we ask the vendor to loan us the products we review (so we don’t need to buy them). Beyond the above, Tech-enhanced Life has no financial interest in any products or services discussed here, and this article is not sponsored by the vendor or any third party. See How we Fund our Work.

Author

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Editorial Team

Tech-enhanced Life has a small group of individuals who share the tasks of creating syntheses of our explorations, and other outputs that summarize investigations in which a number of people have participated. This type of work is published under the authorship of “The Tech-enhanced Life Editorial team”. We also publish a variety of content authored by specific individuals, and you can see those individual contributors profiled on our “Collaborators and Contributors” page.

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1 thought on “Medical Alerts: Just Tell Me What To Buy!”

  1. The medical alert selection

    The medical alert selection tool does not seem to be working for me.  Is there any home alert device that has an intergrated fall detection/alert button on a wrist band? My mother needs it at home and is very hard of hearing and I doubt if she could hear the call center personnel from a base unit in another room. Thanks. 

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