Jason Maciejewski (00:00):
Welcome to Inside The Senior Alliance, a podcast exploring resources and issues in the field of aging. I’m Jason Maciejewski, CEO at The Senior Alliance. We’re the Area Agency on Aging, serving Western Wayne County and the Downriver area. Joining me today is Bryan Stapp, President of Medical Care Alert. Bryan, thank you for joining me today.
Bryan Stapp (00:18):
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jason.
Jason Maciejewski (00:20):
So you’re in the business of fall prevention and we know that falls are a leading reason for hospital admissions amongst older adults. What are the statistics around how common and serious falls are for older adults?
Bryan Stapp (00:34):
So let’s just start off with the fact that there’s nothing good with a fall, right? There’s nothing good happening with a fall, and it can happen to anybody. It’s happened to me, it’s probably happened to you. So this perception that it’s a funny thing or it’s a punchline, particularly amongst our audience of seniors, it’s a very serious thing. And statistically it’s definitely not good. So the CDC tells us that one in four Americans over the age of 55 will fall in their own home. And when you look at the population where we have about 11,500 people every day turning 65, that’s like one every 11 seconds is falling in the United States. So there’s a lot going on. So there’s one every 19 minutes, somebody is dying as a result of a fall related injury. And the real tragedy is that most of these falls are preventable. And in our business, we see that the button presses and the signals that we get for people, about 50% of them are fall-related. Half of those have injuries and half of them do not. But falls are really the main reason why people are contacting us with their personal emergency response system because of those falls.
Jason Maciejewski (01:45):
I know. My own mother-in-law, who was 88, had a fall earlier this year and broke her hip. It certainly changed the way that her health care situation was evolving so it is definitely a big issue in the aging world. We know that the health and wellness workshops that we do, the most popular one across the country, it’s called Matter of Balance. And it’s a fall prevention workshop. And it’s a really serious issue. From your experience, what are the most common causes of falls that you’re seeing?
Bryan Stapp (02:14):
We kind of group them into three different buckets. The first one we look at is the environmental issue in the home. And we know that seniors love their scatter rugs. It’s the scatter rugs. It’s the extension cords because they don’t have as many plugs in an older home as a modern home would have. It’s the poor lighting. It’s the clutter, uneven surfaces. So all these kind of environmental factors lead to tripping hazards, right? So that’s the first thing. The second thing is just your own physical situation. So if you’ve got muscle weakness, balance problems, vision issues, if you’re taking medications that have side effects or maybe they interact with each other, it might give you a little bit of dizziness or a little grogginess. All of those things contribute to a fall. And then if you’ve got a chronic condition, right? If you’ve got Parkinson’s, vertigo, arthritis, you know, those obviously are higher risk factors for some of the fall. So it’s not always just one thing, but sometimes a perfect storm of factors. And the good news is each one of those can be addressed to a certain extent. Certain things are within your control, like again, getting rid of the scatter rugs. But people have to have a willingness to do that.
Jason Maciejewski (03:17):
And so there are a lot of situations, a couple of which you’ve just described, where a person just might not be able to call for help. And we know social isolation is a really big issue amongst older adults. And so how often are there actually situations where there’s just nobody around to help?
Bryan Stapp (03:32):
Studies that we have seen show that about half of the falls occur when somebody is alone. And so that’s really the biggest concern. And that’s, you know, you gave the example of your mother. I’ve got someone in my family who tragically fell when they were alone and passed away. One of our salespeople at our company, her mother fell down the stairs and laid for 18 hours alone. So it’s not uncommon. It gets worse when you’ve got somebody down on the floor for more than an hour. We call that a long lie. So they’re on the floor for an hour and, you know, without getting graphic, you can imagine the kind of things that can occur if somebody’s on the floor for that period of time. And the good news is, if we can get them help within what’s also known as the golden hour, whether they’re having a stroke or a fall or any kind of situation, if you can get them help in that first 60 minutes, their chance of recovery is so much higher. But if you lay on the floor for more than an hour, you may not be here in six months, is what the statistics show. So it’s really important that you know, if you are alone, that if you don’t have one of our buttons with you, that you’ve got your cell phone or some way to get help very, very quickly after that fall.
Jason Maciejewski (04:41):
And for people who do live alone and they have limited mobility, how do you recommend people begin to think about fall prevention?
Bryan Stapp (04:48):
It’s not only the senior who has to think about it for themselves, but it’s also the family. And these do become difficult conversations. And we’ve gone into a lot of homes where it’s a hoarder situation, right? And you’ve just, you know, you’ve got to get rid of the clutter, the bags and the boxes and the tchotchkes that are stacking up. Those are just huge risks. And so that’s more that, you know, that’s not just fall detection and fall prevention, that’s now a lifestyle. That’s a whole another situation that you’ve got to address. And even back to the scatter rugs, I mean, we have had more arguments with people over scatter rugs, and we know that the families have had more arguments over scatter rugs than you would think, but it’s just an emotional thing. So you’ve really got to look at, you know, how do I prevent the falls by eliminating the risks? So getting rid of those environmental considerations, getting people in the mode of, I’ve got to do this not just for myself, but also for my loved ones, right? I’ve got to relieve them from the worry and the stress that I might fall and be in a bad situation and not be able to get help. So a lot of it’s really mindset.
Jason Maciejewski (05:50):
You know, a lot of the people that we deal with now that were involved in putting grab bars in, especially in bathrooms, but there’s also the factor of you have to put them in the right place and you have to install them the right way because they’re not at the right level or the right angle, it could actually be a detriment to people. So you have to be really careful about some of the, what we call assistive and adaptive technologies that people are using, especially when it comes to grab bars. Now what you guys do is a call alert button, and I know there’s fall detection with that. So what happens after a fall is detected and the alert button is pressed, walk us through that chain of response, how that works and how the interaction goes.
Bryan Stapp (06:31):
Sure. So at a very high level, when somebody falls, and if they’ve got a fall detection style pendant that has the sensors in it, that’s looking for a fall, if that goes off, or if they press their button, there’s three basic things that happened. We acknowledge it, we assess the situation and we respond to the situation. Okay? So that’s what happens. So when they press the button or fall detection goes off, a signal goes to our emergency response center, and a trained EMT or EMD trained person is going to acknowledge that call and they’re going to respond to the person, they’re going to talk to them over a two-way voice device. And they’re going to say, this is Jones, this is Medical Care alert. Do you need help? And then that person is going to tell us what they need. If they’re able to speak, they’re going to say, maybe I’ve fallen, but I’m not hurt.
Bryan Stapp (07:18):
Call my daughter, call for a lift assist, whatever the situation may be. And we will do that. We’ll respond and do that. If they say that I’ve fallen, I think I may have broken my hip, we are going to dispatch emergency services and then we’re going to notify the family by calling and texting to their cell phones to let them know that we’ve dispatched. And when we dispatch help, we’re not just calling 911, we’re going to actually call the agency that goes to that exact location. So that may be your local police fire or EMS, whatever it may be. We’re not just calling the general 911 number. We’re giving them all the information of who it is, where they are, what the situation is to our knowledge. We’re giving them a lockbox information if they have one, so that they can get into the home without causing any trouble. And all of this happens in the matter of seconds. So that’s what happens. We acknowledge, we assess the situation and we respond. In the event that somebody’s not able to speak, let’s say they fell and they’re passed out or they just can’t speak or they’re too flustered, we’ll attempt to reach them by their cell phone or their home phone. If we still don’t reach them, then we go ahead and dispatch and notify the family. So even if we don’t speak to them, they’re going to get help.
Jason Maciejewski (08:21):
I know that, I think commonly people understand the call button device, right? But what are the other tools that Medical Care Alert provides for fall prevention and communication in the event of a fall?
Bryan Stapp (08:33):
So there’s a couple of things. First of all, on our website, we do offer a free fall prevention guide that anybody can download. And that’s available at www.medicalcarealert.com/nofalls. You get our fall prevention guide, you can download it. It’s got lots of ideas on how to really address not only the environmental things that we talked about, but looking at your footwear, checking your medications with your doctor or your pharmacist. Just a lot of good ideas to help prevent that. We also include with every system that we send out an emergency contact form that goes on the refrigerator with a magnet, and that’s like a vial of life form if you’re familiar with that. So it lists their doctors, their medications, their conditions, anything that EMS would need to know, it speaks for them, right? So it’s all there. They always look on the refrigerator for that type of information.
Bryan Stapp (09:21):
DNR information. All EMS is always trained to do that. And then we tell the caregivers and the family, when you help your loved one fill out that emergency medical form, take a picture with your cell phone so you can take it with you when you go to the ER because no one’s going to remember all that information. So those are the type of things that we do in addition to just call button. But if when they’ve got the call button, they’re able to customize their notification list. So do you want us to call your daughter, your neighbor and your cousin? In what order are we calling them? Are we just texting them? You know, if you’ve got somebody that’s out of state, maybe a call is not appropriate, but you do want to send them a text message just to let them know what’s going on. We can customize all that for them.
Bryan Stapp (10:00):
If they get one of our GPS enabled devices, then we know when they’re away from their home and we know exactly where they are. So if they’re at the shopping center and they fall down in the parking lot, slip on the ice, and that’s away from their home, we’re going to know which agencies dispatch to that exact location and we’re going to send them help there. And so that’s great for people who are maybe snowbirds or they travel, visit family, they’re still active and driving. So there’s a lot of tools like that we can help people with.
Jason Maciejewski (10:27):
I want to touch on the fall detection features. Could you tell us how they work? How accurate is it for fall detection and how does a device actually distinguish between what’s a real fall and a false alarm?
Bryan Stapp (10:38):
Yeah. Well, so that’s a great question. So most people are just familiar with the basic, you know, I’ve fallen, but I can’t get up button, right? Where you press the button and you get help. About 10 years ago, fall detection really became a good technology that was reliable enough to really put out into the market. And the way it works is it’s a combination of sensors in the device and software that is calibrated to look for a rapid change in motion, right? So it’s looking for a change in the speed, distance and angle of the device. And when it determines that, then it’s going to say this looks like a fall and it’ll announce it. I’ll do a little demonstration for you. I’ve got one here. Sometimes it’s hard to trick it into thinking that it’s falling, but (Device Audio – “We’ve detected a fall. Calling Emergency Services. Press the SOS button if you need to cancel.”)
Bryan Stapp (11:27):
I’m going to cancel it. So that’s what happens when a fall is detected and then that signal, when it’s sent to our monitoring center, it’s flagged as triggered by fall detection. So our operator already knows a little bit about what’s going on. So that’s how it works. The trick is calibrating those algorithms so they’re not so sensitive that it’s going off all the time and that it’s sensitive enough so it detects it when it’s a real fall. And there’s some, you know, there’s some nuances to it. You’ve got to be wearing it correctly. If you’re wearing it around your neck it needs to be at chest level. Most ladies will tuck it inside their shirt, some will tuck it inside their bra, just keep it close to the body. So you’ve got to wear the device correctly. It’s never 100% and no one should ever expect that any fall detection is 100%. I’ll give you a good example. If you slumped out of a chair, that’s not enough motion to set it off. You might be on the floor, but it’s not enough motion to set off fall detection. So if you have a situation, you should always press the button if you’re able to, and then we’ll get you that help.
Jason Maciejewski (12:25):
So the device is doing a lot, it’s doing a lot of monitoring. How do these things get charged? Is there a station? How often do they have to be charged?
Bryan Stapp (12:33):
So it depends on which one you have. Most of the participants with The Senior Alliance have our in-home system and that has a battery in the device that’ll last about 18 months. When that battery gets low, we’re notified and we send participant a brand new button at no charge to the agency or no charge to the participant either. So we make sure that they always have a fresh button. In the event of one of the GPS devices or the smartwatch, you can think of those as basically miniature cell phones that only place one phone call, they call us. And so those do need to be charged. They’ll last two to three days on a single charge. But we recommend that people just charge it daily, put it on the charger, takes about an hour to get to 100%, and that way they know that it’s always ready for them.
Jason Maciejewski (13:15):
And for people who travel or spend time away from their home, how do the fall alert tools ensure coverage for wherever they’re at? Are there limitations to it? Is it connected to a cell service? How does it work?
Bryan Stapp (13:27):
Great question. So with any of our systems, the participant or the user does not have to have a landline, a personal cell phone, internet, or wifi. We take care of all of that. So we’re going to use the cellular networks and depending on which system it is, it’s going to use one of the big ones. It’s either using AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile, and they just need to be in a coverage area. We will talk to residents about their coverage. So if someone’s up in the mountains and they tell us AT&T is no good here, but Verizon is, we’re always certain to make sure that we send them a Verizon compatible device. Again, this is something they don’t have to worry about. We handle all that cellular part of the communication.
Jason Maciejewski (14:05):
Right. I know some people are concerned about privacy issues or maybe they have some pride concerns and maybe that’s a reason they haven’t chosen to use a fall alert tool before. How do you address those kinds of concerns with people?
Bryan Stapp (14:19):
Yeah, those are fair concerns. A couple of different things. First of all, we’re of course fully HIPAA compliant and all of our database is secured. So we’re not concerned about that so much. But the privacy of what happens when I get one of these systems and what happens if I press my button. So the user can control all of that. We have people who say, boy, you better just alert everybody. All right, I want everybody to know that I need help. And they’ll give us five or six contacts to notify and that’s fine. You have other people who are much more private and they will say, I don’t want you to notify anybody and I want you to note my account that you send an ambulance I want no sirens and no lights. And we’ll do all those things. We can customize any of these plans for them.
Bryan Stapp (15:01):
So it’s really important that they do that. And then as far as notifying people, if there is an emergency, they can also customize that. Do you only want them to get a phone call? Do you only want them to get a text? You know, how much information do you want us to share? And we can build all that on the account. As far as the pride thing, we definitely hear that people say, I don’t want one of those things that’s for old people. I’m not going to wear that. It’s ugly. We hear everything. Right. And I would challenge it, I would say, you know, is it better that you wear a small device that maybe you don’t care for aesthetically? Or would you rather lay on the floor for six hours? Which choice shows more strength and wisdom? Which one really shows your pride? And then the other thing to consider is you’re not doing this just for you. You have to think about your daughter, your son, your neighbors, because they’re worried about you. And you giving them that little bit of peace of mind probably outweighs that little bit of pride that you’ve got. And a lot of people, when they think about it in that context, they say, you know, I never thought about it that way. I’ll wear it for them. And that’s a good way to look at it.
Jason Maciejewski (16:06):
It really is a situation where it really helps protect people’s independence, right? It’s not a loss of independence. It’s actually, I think, helping empower them in some ways.
Bryan Stapp (16:15):
Exactly. Right. We actually see people feeling a little more confident once they have it right, because they know now I can go in the backyard. Now I’m okay going out to the mailbox when there’s a little bit of ice out there, because at least I know I’ve got the safety net where I can press the button. So, you know, it’s not about refusing help, it’s just maintaining control over your life and what threatens your independence more – a button or laying on the floor and having to go to the nursing home. So if you watch your independence, be prepared, have a strategy, and I think this is a good tool along with some of the other things we talked about, it’s a good way to implement that strategy.
Jason Maciejewski (16:50):
Yeah. I see a lot of marketing around these fall alert tools now, really featuring people in their fifties.
Bryan Stapp (16:56):
Yeah.
Jason Maciejewski (16:57):
The marketing materials. I just turned 56 a few weeks ago and I see these marketing materials and it’s like, oh, these people look like me.
Bryan Stapp (17:06):
Yes. Yes.
Jason Maciejewski (17:06):
It really is a tool for anybody that kind of gets into that age range where, you know, a fall could really impact your health.
Bryan Stapp (17:14):
Exactly. Right. And I’ve done it. I’ve tripped, you know, leaving the supermarket, I’ve tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and gone head over heels on one of those smaller shopping carts, and I’m like, what the heck just happened here? But it happens, you know, again, to the best of us, and I’m, you know, I’m in pretty good shape. I got good balance, so it can happen to anybody. But now, when you got smart watches like our smartwatch, it doesn’t look like a medical device, but it’s also not as complicated with small fonts like an Apple Watch. The fall detection algorithm is designed for seniors, not for runners. So these tools are becoming not only more available and more affordable, but they’re also less intrusive, if you will, in terms of, you know, the aesthetics of them. And I think people are starting to adopt them more.
Jason Maciejewski (18:01):
I think they are. And Bryan, for people listening to the podcast today, where could they get connected with Medical Care Alert to learn more about the products and services that you guys offer?
Bryan Stapp (18:10):
Sure. Well, locally we’re based here in Livonia, but we cover certainly the entire state of Michigan and all 50 states. We have thousands of clients in all 50 states. Our website is medicalcarealert.com. So Care is our middle name as we like to say. And our toll free number to speak to someone is 855-272-1010. And there’s a lot of resources on our website. I mentioned the fall prevention guide, but we also have that EMS form is available on there. There’s a lot of really good articles and content around how to make your home safer, how to have some of these difficult conversations with your loved one, whether it’s about getting a button or taking the keys away and not driving. You know, we really try to cater to the families to help them get through this because we know this is difficult. It’s not fun for anybody. Nobody wants to be having these conversations, but they love their parent, their aunt, their uncle, whoever it is that they’re caring for, and they just want the best for them. But these are hard conversations at times, and we want to give them tools to make it easier.
Jason Maciejewski (19:15):
Bryan, I want to thank you for the insight into falls and fall prevention tools that you’ve given us today here, and really appreciate you taking some time out to join us.
Bryan Stapp (19:23):
My pleasure, Jason and we enjoy our relationship with The Senior Alliance. We’ve been working with you guys since I think 2019. And we’ve helped hundreds and hundreds of seniors and we really enjoy working with your entire team. So thank you for bringing me on today.
Jason Maciejewski (19:38):
We appreciate the partnership as well. You have questions about services or programs The Senior Alliance offers. You can call us at (734) 722-2830, or you can email us at info@thesenioralliance.org. Information about our agency or the programs and services that we offer can be found on our website, which is thesenioralliance.org. Finally, on Facebook, we can be located by searching for The Senior Alliance. I’m Jason Maciejewski. Thank you for listening to this episode of Inside The Senior Alliance.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Inside The Senior Alliance is a production of The Senior Alliance and Blazing Kiss Media.
