Social services Community alarms and assistive technology

See David's real-life story

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My name is David. My father Harry lives at home, is 94 years of age and suffers from dementia.

He's had one or two visits to hospital because he tends to get urinary infections as he has been catheterized and he's also had one or two falls.

We're using technology to keep my dad in his own home. 

Manchester City Council has installed a bed sensor which is a magnetic strip that fits under the mattress and it will alert the Community Alarm team if he's not in bed at a certain time and he also has an alarm pendant which will go off when he falls or he can manually press it if he's in trouble.

We've noticed since we've had this technology that my dad has had one or two falls and without the alarms we wouldn't have known about that so that just allows us to keep an extra eye on him and be a bit more vigilant about how he is at home and gives us a bit more peace of mind.

I think it's really important that my dad lives at home.Without this technology he might be in residential care which I don't think he would be particularly happy about because of his dementia condition he is much better in familiar surroundings, is comfortable as neighbours come to visit him. It's a lot much better is for his well-being really.

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