Mrs. Graham has lived alone since her husband  died 4 years ago. She gets along pretty well, and until recently she took pride in being able to do all her chores herself.

The day this elderly lady fell in her garage it was very, very hot. There are no windows in the garage, and the neighbors were all at work, so they wouldn't have heard her calling anyway. When she got her wits about her she realized that it hurt to move, and there was no way she would be able to stand up. Crawling was out of the question, too.

We all remember the, "I've fallen, and I can't get up" commercials. They were pretty amusing at the time.

It's not so amusing to think someone we love might be in that situation - and not be able to call for help. What if he or she were to lie there for hours, even days, before someone came? It's a terrifying thought. Falls, especially for seniors who live alone, can be life-changing in a very, very bad way.

No one wants to lock up an older person in cotton batting (or at least not very many people do), but we all worry about the "what ifs."

One way to reduce (you can never eliminate) the worry is to have your elder wear a personal emergency response (ERS) button. Just like in that old ad.

A personal emergency response system allows the person wearing it to call for help without having to physically get to a telephone. In the home it's usually made up of two parts - a push button, often worn around the neck or on the wrist like a watch - and a receiver/transmitter.

When the wearer pushes the ERS button he's wearing, a message is sent to a receiver/transmitter attached to the telephone. It automatically dials an emergency response center, which is monitored 24 hours a day.

The emergency response center then summons help.

Some units have extremely sensitive speakers so the emergency responder can talk to the person, wherever she is in the home. This helps them know what kind of emergency help to send.
Some systems even include a reminder feature, helping users to remember medications or other routine activities that should be done on a schedule.

If there ever were ever a universal recommendation I would make to every senior, it would be to get a personal alarm. I've seen first-hand, several times, how it has saved someone who could have been in deep trouble otherwise.

Remember Mrs. Graham, who fell in her closed garage? After a few minutes she pushed her ERS alarm. Because the monitoring agency knew where she had hidden a key, emergency personnel were able to get to her without breaking a door or window. She was off to the hospital before much more serious damage was done by internal bleeding or the heat.

She has since been able to return home. She tells me she hasn't taken her alarm off even once since the accident, and she never will.