Emergency alert devices have been used for quite some time to provide a measure of safety and security to persons, and especially persons who are likely to find themselves in a situation wherein they need help, but are unable to reach a telephone to call for help.
Emergency alert devices are especially popular with older people who, because of age or infirmities, are subject to falling or suffering strokes and heart attacks that can immobilize them. When immobilized, such infirm people often are not capable of ambulating to a nearby phone, to make a telephone call to a care giver, such as a friend, family member, or usually, a help desk operator who is trained to respond to the telephone call by contacting a friend or emergency responder.
Examples of such emergency devices are the “Life Alert” device manufactured by life Alert Emergency Response, Inc., and the American Medical device that is distributed by American Medical Alarms, Inc.
The Life Alert and American Medical devices operate by using two separately encased and remotely positioned components. The first component comprises a portable wearable device that contains an emergency button, and a radio transmitter. When the emergency button is activated by a user, a radio signal is sent to the second component that comprises a base unit. The base unit is usually placed at a fixed position in the dwelling, and is in communication with the land telephone line of the building in which the device is used. The portable wearable unit typically comprises a small pendant-sized unit that is coupled to a lanyard or rope, and worn like a pendant around the neck of the user. The base device is often the size of a multi-line telephone base set, and is placed at a position in the house close to a telephone jack, so that it may connect through the phone jack into the land line circuitry of the house.
To operate the unit, a user depresses a button on the pendant/portable unit. The pendant then sends a signal to the base unit. The base unit has an automatic dialing feature and communicates a signal through the land line of the house to a help desk maintained by a company, such as Life Alert or American Alarms, Inc. See www.lifealert.com and www.americanmedicalalarms.com.
The normal protocol for dealing with such a call is that the call is received by the help desk operator, who then tries to communicate verbally with the user. This verbal communication is usually attempted through a “speaker phone” feature of the base unit. As is well known in the art, a “speaker phone” includes a microphone and audio speaker that is designed to enable the user to send and receive verbal messages in a “hands free” manner, and that also permits communication to occur if the user is relatively remote (e.g. several feet) away from the speaker phone. As such, a speaker phone is distinguishable from a hand set which usually requires the user to hold the unit against his head, and ear.
If the remote care giver (here a help desk operator) can communicate with the user and establish that nothing is wrong with the user, or that a false signal has been sent, the care giver can terminate the telephone call knowing that the user is in no emergency. On the other hand, if the user is capable of verbally communicating with the help desk so that the care giver can determine the nature of the emergency, the help desk operator might be able to obtain enough information to contact the appropriate emergency responder, who may be a person such as the next of kin, a closely located friend, an ambulance, fireman or a police agency.
Unfortunately, in many cases the help desk operator is not capable of determining the nature of the emergency. One cause for this inability is that the user may be too injured to communicate, or may be injured in a manner, such as having a stroke, wherein the user's ability to communicate is significantly compromised.
Another source of an inability to communicate is related much more to equipment issues than the patient condition. In particular, the speaker phone through which communication occurs is usually placed at a single point within the dwelling. As such, if the user is far away from the speaker phone (which often occurs), the user is unable to communicate through the speaker phone with the help desk person.
Many emergency alert servicing companies establish a protocol for dealing with such situations wherein communication is not established. Often, the first step in the protocol is for the help desk person to call a designated “friend”. The primary attributes that the friend must have are a willingness to help the user if help is necessary, and a close proximity to the user. Although the designated “friend” would normally be a relative, a relative would not necessarily be a good “friend” if the friend is not located close to the user.
For example, if the user resides in a house with a relative, but the relative is out of the house most of the day due to work, it might be more effective to designate a stay-at-home neighbor to be the designated friend, since such neighbor can usually get over to the user's dwelling within a few minutes, as opposed to the lived-with-relative, whose work place may be, for example, a half an hour away.
If the help desk person is able to contact the designated friend (or friends), the designated friend will then go over to the user's house to determine the user's condition. Once with the user, the designated friend may choose to call an emergency responder (e.g. ambulance) directly, or alternately, re-contact the help desk. One reason that the designated friend may contact the help desk operator is to tell the help desk that the user is in no danger. Another reason that the friend may contact the help desk operator is to inform the help desk that action has been taken to contact an emergency responder, to ensure that an emergency responder is not contacted twice, once by the friend and a second time by the help desk. If the help desk person is unable to contact any of the one or more designated friends, or if the designated friend is not in a position to go to the user quickly, the help desk person will next call an emergency responder.
Although the aforementioned device does perform its function in a workmanlike manner, room for improvement exists. One area in which room for improvement exists relates to the distance between the position of the user and the voice communication device (e.g. speaker phone) that permits the user to talk to a caregiver such as the help desk operator. One way to overcome this problem is to use a radio device that is capable not only of providing a signal to the base unit, but also contains a speaker phone or other verbal communication device. Although this scheme works well, it has the drawback of often requiring a significantly larger pendant-type unit that can add both cost and discomfort to the user of the device.
Another vehicle for bringing the “speaker phone” communication device closer to a user is to employ a mobile telephone pendant that is worn by the user, and takes the place of both the pendant and the base unit, since the mobile phone would presumably be capable of making calls directly out to a mobile network, such as the mobile network operated by service provider companies such as Sprint, Verizon, T1 Mobile, AT&T and other “wireless” providers.
Although the mobile phone would appear to be an ideal vehicle, it also has drawbacks. These drawbacks reside primarily in the battery power consumption rate attendant to most mobile phones. Although great advances have been made in reducing the power consumed by mobile telephones, and also in prolonging battery life, at present, the power consumption rate of mobile phones limits their time between charges to normally one or two days. A large amount of battery power occurs because the telephone communications unit within the phone is required to send a periodic signal to the cell phone communications system, so that the cell phone communications system (network) will know the location of the phone, so that it can appropriately direct telephone calls from the network to the particular mobile phone.
Normally, charging a mobile phone requires that the phone be coupled by a cord or plug to a power source, such as a wall outlet, or a computer USB port. As the cord serves as a fixed length tether, the user is usually forced to remove or disengage the mobile phone from his person during such times as the phone is being charged. As this charging often takes a period of a few hours, it is likely that the user of the device and the mobile phone will become spatially separated at one or more points during the charging of the phone. If such spatial separation occurs, and the user has an emergency, he will not be close to the mobile phone when needed, and thus will not be able to make the emergency call for which the mobile phone is designed.
One object of the present invention is to provide a wearable emergency alert device that includes a mechanism to enable the user to make an emergency call, even at such times as when the mobile phone is spatially separated from the user, such as when the mobile phone is being charged.