Case Study - London Borough

London Borough Falls Prevention Team

Feedback from a physiotherapist within a London Borough Falls Prevention Team.

..comparing Airlert with other makes we got more consistency with appropriate alerts and less false alarms ..the staff would ask "can we have the Frequency Precision ones?"

NHS Physiotherapist - pager-linked Bed & Chair

The NHS team have been using Frequency Precision Airlert sensors for over five years. We talked to them about their experience with the equipment.

 

Products used: Pager-linked Airlert Bed and Chair Sensors

Products: "We were using both bed and chair sensors in three residential homes to alert staff on a 24hr basis to when someone who had cognitive impairment of some type, mainly dementia, was getting up. They were for clients who didn’t have any of the awareness of the dangers to themselves of getting up and walking around without any supervision or assistance." 

Ideal Use: "Great for people who’ve got reduced awareness to the risks that moving around is going to pose as far as falling is concerned. If people know that if they get up they are likely to fall the normal thing is to think “I’l wait until someone can help me get up”. This equipment is essential for people who don’t have that thought process. They think “well I want to get up and walk so that’s what I’l do” and they do so without thinking about the possible risks. So that’s where both the Airlert Bed and Chair sensors are really, really useful."

Why Our sensors: "We tended to find that comparing Airlert with other makes we got more consistency with appropriate alerts and less false alarms. We also found that the transmission from the mat to the pager would always work whereas some of the other system we tested didn’t always work in some of the larger homes. We tried out various other systems before we made our decision and didn’t find them as useful. So from that point of the view the staff would ask "can we have the Frequency Precision ones". They appreciated that they were easy to use and more reliable."

Insights: "Chair sensors work best in certain scenarios. They were most successful if someone always has their own chair or if they don’t tend to spend their time in the communal areas and prefer to sit in a chair in their own room. You would then know that person would be in the connected chair and the equipment would work absolutely fine. In a communal area a chair sensor might be connected to someone's usual chair but people don't necessarily sit in the chairs you expect them to sit in so on occasion the wrong person might sit on the sensor."

"We positioned the chair mat both under and over the cushion depending on the chair type and it would work well both ways."

"It's best to attach the transmitter to the chair using the holder, those times when we didn't were the times when someone might fiddle and unplug the sensor although this rarely happened."

 

 

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