Medical alarm

A medical alarm is an alarm system designed to signal the presence of a hazard requiring urgent attention and to summon emergency medical personnel. Other terms for a medical alarm are Personal Emergency Response System (PERS) or medical alert.

Typical systems have a wireless pendant or transmitter that can be activated in an emergency. When the medical alarm is activated, the signal is transmitted to an alarm monitoring company's central station, other emergency agency or other programmed phone numbers. Medical personnel are then dispatched to the site where the alarm was activated.

Elderly people and disabled people who live alone commonly use/require medical alarms.

Origin

Home alert systems were conceived and developed in Germany in the early 1970s by Wilhelm Hormann with the aim of developing new comprehensive structures for ambulatory and non-ambulatory care for the sick, the elderly, those who live alone, and disabled persons.

Hormann's concept of "home alert" (Hausnotruf) is thus to be seen as fairly broad, including the communication of biomedical data and social communication, and not limited to use as an "elder alarm". This has been set forth extensively in the research literature on PERS.